Smaller SUV aims for a bit of ruggedness
2019 Honda Passport: A little bit country.
Marketer’s pitch: “2019 Passport named best in class by Car and Driver.”
What’s new: The whole thing. Honda has pitched the Passport as a more rugged five-seater SUV than its other offerings.
But, all-wheel drive. I mean, that’s fine for me — whose idea of camping involves hotels without room service — but you tough people want four-wheel drive, thick tractor tires and winches. This ain’t that — no two-speed transfer case here — although it does offer different modes for mud, snow, and more.
In any case, it’s far better than the Isuzu version of the Passport that Honda sold in the 1990s.
Friends and stuff: The Passport offers a ticket to plenty of room for big people. It’s pretty much a shrunken Pilot, so without the third row, legs enjoy an impressive amount of room.
But with a need to offer “ruggedness,” even in faux form, the Passport requires a long climb to the passenger area (the downside of the 20.5 centimetres of ground clearance). And that flat hump means the passenger compartment is shorter than many. Headroom is fine, but the cargo space height is quite short. There’s just 77.7 cubic feet of space with the seat folded down, and we had a heck of a time fitting in one bicycle and a little bit of luggage while still leaving one-third of the rear seat upright.
Space behind the second row is a comparatively huge 41.2 cubic feet.
Up to speed: The 3.5-litre V-6 creates an impressive 280 horsepower, so the Passport is no slouch on the road. It gets to 100 km/h in 5.4 seconds, according to Car and Driver. Just ask the nice police officer I met in Eastville, Virginia.
Shifty: The Passport uses a nine-speed automatic transmission to transfer the power to the road. My wife remarked that the PRND buttons look like a remote control all lined up there, a connection I’d never made.
Press the D/S button for Sport mode and feel the Passport really kick it. Unfortunately, it holds lower gears a bit too long. Just shift the gears yourself through the paddles to avoid this.
On the road: The Passport feels its tallness on the curves, but it’s comfortable for highway cruising.
High tech: The Passport tested featured all the latest Honda Sensing safety stuff, adaptive cruise, collision braking, lane keeping, lane departure and road-departure mitigation.
Driver’s Seat: The driver’s seat is exceedingly comfortable, especially for long trips. Even when you’re parked roadside and the lights are flashing red and blue behind you.
The view from the cockpit is impressive by today’s standards as well. The windows are tall, so passing is easy. Maybe a little too easy. But at least you can clearly see the nice police officer walking back to the Passport with the clipboard.
Play some tunes: The stereo played just fine, and the controls — even lacking a tuning dial — were not all that difficult to become accustomed to.
But the sound quality was only a B+ or so. I moved the equalizer around over and over and could never find a way to make my favourite songs sound just the way I wanted.
Night shift: The headlights offered great illumination of the road, but the map lights interfered with the view.
Fuel economy: I averaged about 24 mpg in a fairly flat round of testing with a lot of highway miles, even despite adjusting the speed downward after the nice chat with Virginia’s finest.