Matt Fink
Honda has been in the off-road game longer than some folks realize. A lot longer. Decades before the UTV industry exploded, Honda was selling single-seat dune buggies. That’s where the names “Odyssey” and “Pilot” first showed up, long before they ended up on a minivan and an SUV. Before that, Honda was building even wackier stuff, like the three-wheeled All-Terrain Cycle. Today, Honda’s approach to off-road performance is a lot more mature — scientific, even.
At the 2027 Passport TrailSport launch this month (our off-road review went live last week), I spent a few days immersed in Honda’s internal off-road driver training program and came away impressed. Yes, the brand is leaning into rugged-looking SUVs because that’s what sells. But it’s also doing the homework to make sure the people designing these vehicles actually understand the mechanics and principles of off-road driving.
And yes, there’s a lot more to it than “hold my beer and watch this!”
Matt Fink
There’s actually a sanctioning body that presides over what I consider the pinnacle of off-road professionalism: the I4WDTA (short for International 4-Wheel Drive Trainers Association). It maintains standards for driving technique, vehicle recovery, setup, and pretty much everything to do with off-road adventuring. Mainly, it exists to certify off-road trainers to a universal — and very high — standard. Through those trainers, its guidelines for proper off-road driving make their way out into the world.
Running through everything the I4WDTA prescribes would fill a textbook. But the main ideas are progressive aggression, methodical movement, and minimizing impact on vehicles, bodies, land, and animals. It’s about treating off-road driving as a repeatable science rather than standard-issue weekend redneckery.
As my boss Scott Trager at Northeast Off-Road Adventures — where I moonlight as a trail guide — likes to say: “It’s all about being as slow as possible, and as fast as necessary.” He’s I4WDTA-certified himself.
That philosophy is exactly what Honda has embedded into its internal training program, and the results show in how the 2027 Passport TrailSport was developed and tuned for real-world off-road use.
