Honda Dangled 3 New Passport SUVs From a Crane to Show How Tough It Is

Honda probably isn’t the first, second, or even third car manufacturer that comes to mind when you think of rugged, off-road SUVs. The Japanese automaker is now trying to change that perception with the 2026 Honda Passport.

To show how tough its new SUV is, Honda dangled three TrailSport models end-to-end from their recovery points from a 140-foot crane. With all fluids drained and transmission locked in neutral, that gray Passport up top was dangling 100 feet off the ground, with its front tow hooks holding over 14,000 pounds of Japanese crossover. Depending on trim, each Passport TrailSport weighs around 4,700 pounds.

We should note that while the visual of this marketing stunt is undoubtedly cool, there’s not too much here that another, sufficiently modern, sufficiently robust vehicle couldn’t reasonably do, too. Recovery hooks are generally rated for multiples of the vehicle’s own weight, but Honda does deserve props for engineering ones that are this strong on what is, ultimately, a unibody crossover.

Per Honda, the bright orange hooks themselves are powder coated to corrode less easily and, as a patented world first, are designed to collapse in the event of a crash. Passport also happens to be Honda’s first “light truck” to come with exposed, heavy-duty front recovery points from the factory.

The real test of the new Passport’s recovery hooks, though, would be how they handle sudden forces, i.e. the sort of forces that come into play when trying to yank another vehicle out of a rut. We reached out to Honda to find out the aftermath of the stunt, and we were told there was none.

“All of the Passports were inspected after the stunt with no damage found,” a Honda spokesperson told The Drive. “They all went back into our test fleet afterward, with one even being driven from California to the east coast the day after the stunt.”

In addition to the recovery points and more rigid chassis, other off-road-focused Passport features include suspension and all-wheel drive tuned for loose terrain, steel skid plates 4mm thick up front and 2.8 mm thick over the fuel tank, all-terrain tires, and a Class III tow hitch made of 12.7-mm thick high-strength steel capable of towing up to 5,000 pounds.

Modern cars arguably don’t get enough credit for being as overengineered as they are, and if we had to put money on it, you’d probably get similar results if you did this same crane stunt with, say, three Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawks. Our first drive review of the rugged new Passport is coming very soon, but it’s nice to see that Honda is already taking Toughness seriously.

Got a tip or question for the author about the Passport? You can reach him here: chris.tsui@thedrive.com

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