Honda Sends Its Engineers to Off-Road School, and It’s Paying Off
The Drive ·
Between Baja racing and running a serious internal off-road school, it's worth noting how seriously Honda takes this genre of driving. The post Honda Sends Its Engineers to Off-Road School, and It’s Paying Off appeared first on The Drive .
Honda ’s 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!”
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.
So how does this connect to Honda? Pete Langseth, a Honda engineer at the center of the brand’s off-road development, is also I4WDTA-certified. He teaches Honda people to drive efficiently, accurately, and safely on everything from dirt roads to mogul courses far hairier than anything the average Passport owner will ever see.
And it’s not just a few marketing managers and execs. Hundreds of Honda associates have gone through the training so far, and Honda told me the goal is to eventually get all of them through. That’d be good job security for Langseth and his team, who have one of the best gigs in the auto industry as far as I can tell.
I’ve chatted with Langseth a few times over the years, and his enthusiasm for the intricacies of off-roading is too intense to be faked. On this trip, he blew my mind during a recovery demo, where he was showing us how a Passport could use lines, pulleys, and load-distribution tools to pull a bogged Pilot out of a ditch. Somebody asked, “Why not use this tree?” and he said something like, “That’s a conifer; we try to winch off deciduous trees because they have deeper roots.”
Now that’s thinking-man’s off-roading.
Honda works with Overland Experts (OEX), one of the preeminent off-road training outfits in the country, to test its vehicles and employees against all kinds of obstacles and terrain. Honda uses OEX’s trail networks in North Carolina, Utah, and Michigan for training, and when it needs more teaching staff, it leans on OEX’s crew. Tony Cerruto, OEX’s director of military training and an instructor, was on site in North Carolina during the Passport demo. He has crazy stories, but he also brought the same technical, tactical, practical approach to off-roading that I appreciated in Honda’s crew.
In our 2027 Passport off-road review, I made it clear I was impressed with the car. But I left with an even stronger impression of how seriously Honda’s taking off-roading right now. The TrailSport program is clearly the product of significant investment in money, time, and people. I think it’s safe to say Honda will keep pushing what its SUVs can do off the pavement. And that’s without even getting into powersports. Remember, Honda makes a cool DCT-equipped UTV ( the Talon ) and a lineup of off-road motorcycles that can go just about anywhere.
Meanwhile, Honda’s next off-road move is far more extreme than anything it sells to the public: a brand-new trophy truck design . This isn’t exactly a debut. Honda has been running in desert racing’s premier Trophy Truck class since 2023, first with a Ridgeline-badged truck and more recently with a Passport-badged one that started the 2025 Baja 1000 on pole. Staying committed to desert racing at this level is a pretty strong sign that off-road is a corporate priority—even if a daily-driven Passport has almost nothing in common with the race car.
Being a driving enthusiast is technically not a requirement for automotive engineers. But the way Honda is combining hands-on orientation with engineer-friendly schooling (like explaining off-road recoveries in empirical measures) seems like a great path to building a team that really cares about, and understands, its products.
Got a story tip? Drop us a line at tips@thedrive.com .
The post Honda Sends Its Engineers to Off-Road School, and It’s Paying Off appeared first on The Drive .