Honda Reveals How Tough The 2026 Passport TrailSport Is In One Of The Most Terrifying Ways Possible

Whatever you do, don't hang your new SUV from a crane. First of all, getting your hands on a crane would be pretty tough, and secondly, Honda's already done the hard work for you. They've strung up three examples of their newest SUV from a 140-foot-tall crane to save you the trouble. 

In a test that nobody asked for, but that we're still pretty impressed by, Honda linked together three new 2026 Passport TrailSport models via their front recovery points and sent them skyward. That's right — three of them were linked together, pulled upward one at a time, adding the weight of each vehicle along the way, and likely terrifying anyone with a fear of heights. 

The Passport is Honda's midsize SUV that competes with a range of other family haulers like the luxurious Subaru Outback or the ready-to-rumble Ford Bronco — a class of vehicles that offer varying degrees of toughness. The demonstration was meant to display just how heavy-duty the Passport's recovery points are. According to Honda, the Passport TrailSport's bright-orange recovery points can support twice the SUV's weight — a selling point for off-road enthusiasts. A heavy-duty recovery point can be useful if you plan on pulling other SUVs out of sticky situations, like deep mud or sand, or if you get your Passport stuck and need a bit of assistance yourself. 

To pull off something this ambitious took a significant amount of planning on Honda's part. On top of sourcing a crane to use at its proving center in California, Honda also had to drain the vehicles of all their fluids and put the transmissions in neutral. A Passport TrailSport's curb weight is quoted at 4,676 pounds, but the SUV would weigh less without fuel, transmission fluid, oil, and all the other fluids required to keep a vehicle running. The weight of the entire setup, according to Honda, was over 14,000 pounds — all supported by the front recovery points on the highest SUV of the bunch — and that math checks out. Shout out to all the recovery cables, too, as they were holding the same amount of weight.  

In a recent First Drive experience, SlashGear's Alex Hevesy tested out the new 2026 Passport TrailSport, keeping contact with the ground for all of his testing, which was significantly less terrifying than some SUVs hanging in the air. Despite the lack of a crane, though, the Passport was pretty impressive during Honda's First Drive event. It proved comfortable and capable enough to compete with vehicles like the recently redesigned 4Runner, even if the body-on-frame Toyota has more off-road capability. But if you want your hands to start sweating a bit, check out some of the onboard video of the Honda demonstration.