Like many other SUVs, the Honda Passport has become more rugged over time. The 2022 model year marked the debut of the all-new TrailSport trim level, which was largely an appearance package. Two years later, Honda equipped the Passport TrailSport with suspension enhancements and all-terrain tires. The all-new 2026 model has similar upgrades as well as increased ground clearance, improved approach and departure angles, second-generation i-VTM4 torque-vectoring all-wheel drive, and reinforced steel skid plates. Honda calls the 2026 Honda Passport TrailSport “the most rugged, off-road capable Honda SUV ever.” The upcoming Alcan 5000 Rally, an 11-day journey across 5,900 miles of the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Canada, will be a grueling test of that claim.
Given the terrain the 2026 Passport TrailSport will encounter, you might think Honda lifted it high and threw on massive apocalypse-proof tires. In fact, the rig Andy and Mercedes Lilienthal get is stock. In last year’s rally, with Andy as the pilot of an INEOS Grenadier and Mercedes as the navigator, the couple took 1st place in the 2S class; both will fill the same roles behind the wheel of the Passport. The 3.5-liter V6 generates its usual 285 horsepower and routes it through a 10-speed automatic and the i-VTM4 all-wheel drive system. The four-wheel independent suspension has forged steel suspension arms and cast-iron knuckles, but those are standard components on the 2026 Passport. However, Honda did load up the Lilienthals’ vehicle with several genuine Honda accessories designed to make it more robust and capable, including rock sliders, aluminum front scuff plate, full-size spare wheel and tire, cargo roof platform, and MOLLE boards. Baja Designs auxiliary lights, attached to a Rally Innovations prototype light bar mount, will illuminate the difficult paths that lie ahead.
Started in 1984, the Alcan 5000 Rally is “a unique accuracy-based time-speed-distance event where teams use a paper route book to navigate public roads at or below posted speed limits per what the route book’s turn-by-turn directions say, both on time and on route,” according to Honda. Whichever teams get the closest to matching the rallymaster’s overall perfect zero times win their class or overall title.
This year’s Alcan 5000 Rally runs September 2-12 and will take the Lilienthals and their rivals from Kirkland, Washington through Canada’s Yukon Territory to Fairbanks, Alaska and across the finish line in British Columbia, Canada. By the time they’re done, they’ll have traveled 5,000 miles, plus another 900 on unpaved roads by completing all the optional routes. It’ll be a test of nerve, coordination, endurance . . . and the 2026 Honda Passport TrailSport’s seat cushions.
