TrailSport takes Pilot to higher ground
SEDONA, Arizona — The Honda Pilot is an excellent three-row SUV to drop the kids off at school or take them up Broken Arrow mountain trail to 4,200 feet for one the most breathtaking views in America.
Oh, I’m not kidding. With all-wheel drive and all-terrain tires, the 2023 Honda Pilot TrailSport can scramble up slippery rocks on the Sedona trails.
Pilot TrailSport is the intersection of production and performance, but aimed at off-roading. TrailSport joins an elite list of three-row SUVs (Ford Explorer Timberline, Kia Telluride X-Pro) hardened with off-road essentials — all-terrain tires, skid plates, all-wheel drive and lifted suspension.
Like the rest of the 2023 Honda Pilot, the rear gets a complete makeover with big, blocky taillamps connected by a horizontal bar emblazoned with PILOT.
The third-gen Pilot was an ergonomic marvel with its sliding console door and second-row seats that would collapse forward for easy third-row access. From the Fit’s magic seats to the Civic’s multi-purpose console to the Pilot, Honda has never lacked in a intuitive understanding of what makes interiors more livable. But ... as our friends at Car and Driver bluntly put it, the last-gen model “looks like a lifted minivan.” Ouch.
The next-gen required an emotional connection. Starting with the
2021 Civic, Honda isn’t just remodeling the home
with the latest appliances; it’s brought in an interior designer.
The redesigned Pilot continues a theme across the Pilot lineup — including the Civic, HR-V and CR-V — of updating core models with style and performance improvements. Pilot follows the Civic, HR-V, CR-V (and forthcoming Accord) with a handsome, more chiseled exterior and interior to match. Upright, squaredoff grille. Slit LED headlights, muscular shoulders outside. Crisp interior switches, tablet dash screen, digital dials inside.
The ergonomic genius is still here: one-touch collapse second-row seats, bigger cupholders to hold tall Thermoses, sub-floor rear cargo room, space-saving “trigger shifter,” 2.4 more inches of second-row legroom. The touchscreen is complemented by (starting with the most popular EX-L trim at $43K) wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless charging and standard adaptive cruise control.
In the second row of 2023 Honda Pilot models equipped with a bench seat, the middle portion can be used a seat, cupholder, or can be removed entirely.
Notably, the Pilot is not electric. Pilot doesn’t even offer a hybrid.
Multi-cog boxes aid fuel efficiency but often at the expense of smoothness as the electronics hunt for which gear to use. Nailing the throttle in SPORT mode over Sedona’s heaving asphalt roads, I found the Pilot has the smoothest drivetrain in class this side of the Mazda CX-9’s sublime 6-speed.
The remade interior of the 2023 Honda Pilot TrailSport follows the CR-V in its horizontal layout with a highmounted tablet screen. That comfort is even more refined in the Honda’s top-drawer Elite model, its chassis stuffed with sound-deadening foam while adding goo-gaws like a 12-inch configurable instrument panel and head-up display.
Put me down for TrailSport. All-terrain tires can be noisy with their bigger tread blocks, so Pilot engineers sweated the details to make them virtually indistinguishable from the standard all-season tires for on-road drivability.
With 30% more body rigidity, Pilot is poised off-road — displaying none of the body flex I’d expected. That rigidity translates on-road.
Turning onto Broken Arrow, I toggled the mode selector to TRAIL. I pushed a button and the ceiling retreated, the panoramic roof revealing the red rocks rising.