Honda, Honda

“Our team of passionate engineers is taking our ultimate Honda adventure SUV and making it even more capable for 2027,” said Honda National Auto Sales Assistant Vice President Luis Guerra. “By enhancing both the driving experience and off-road capability, Honda Passport offers our customers an SUV for their daily life and next great adventure.”

The two-row, midsize off-road segment has long been dominated by the Jeep Grand Cherokee (and its lifted Trailhawk halo model featuring all-terrain tires) with annual sales north of 200,000 units.

The Passport TrailSport takes direct aim at the Toyota 4Runner TRD Off-Road and Land Cruiser, rugged Japanese SUVs that have followed the Grand Cherokee in offering customers an adventurous-looking SUV even if it’s only used as a daily driver. The strategy has worked with the 4Runner/Land Cruiser pushing nearly 150,000-unit sales in 2025. The Passport sold a record 55,231 units in 2025 and sales are up 20% this year through August.

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Henry Payne, The Detroit News

Point Pleasant, West Virginia — During Prohibition, my home state of West Virginia was notorious for bootleggers running moonshine across state lines. To outrun the law, shiners like future NASCAR racer Curtis Turner famously ran hooch through the state, using the treacherous mountain passes to escape the feds in modified Ford Coupes, Studebakers and Dodges with big engines and hidden storage.

Boy, would they have loved the supercharged-Coyote-V8-powered, 810-horse, 2025 Ford Mustang RTR Spec 3.

I spent a week flogging it everywhere from West Virginia’s old moonshine routes to Michigan’s M1 Concourse Champion Motor Speedway.

BRAWWWWGH! I downshifted from 4^th to 3^rd and then nailed the throttle down WV-869, the Coyote’s howl bouncing off the nearby hills, before hanging a left on WV-817 running along the Kanawha River. Flat, traffic free, with nothing but roadside cornfields and abandoned Mail Pouch Tobacco barns, WV-817 is one of the most enjoyable two-lane roads in the eastern U.S.

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Henry Payne, The Detroit News

Indeed, the eighth-generation ES was originally planned as an electric model as U.S. and California regulations pushed automakers toward EVs — and as Lexus targeted the Chinese market in addition to its traditional U.S. and Japanese markets.

Despite the government mandates, however, U.S. EV demand plateaued around 8% of the market in 2025. When a new Republican administration in Washington relaxed federal-and-state-imposed regulations and EV demand fell, Lexus shifted gears.

“The original intent was for the ES to be predominantly a battery-electric vehicle. But when we were given more flexibility and listened to our customers and what they were asking for, we made the shift into being more of a 80% hybrid, 20% BEV” mix, continued Hurlow. “(We were) able to make that shift as the market shifted on us. That’s the flexibility the multi-pathway approach (gives us).”

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Henry Payne, The Detroit News

With a colossal 670 horsepower from its 4.0-liter, twin-turbo V-8 (14 more than the standard Vantage), the supercar inhaled the landscape in front of me. Developed alongside the Vantage GT3 car that is leading the 2026 IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship’s GTD class, the Vantage is remarkably nimble for a 4,000-pound production car.

After cruising across Washtenaw Couty, I entered Hell and selected TRACK mode. The variable shocks noticeably stiffened, making the car feel as one with the road. Sticky, summer Michelin Pilot Sport S tires gripped the asphalt. Switch the eight-speed automatic transmission to MANUAL mode. Pull the bat-wing-shaped paddles behind the steering wheel to keep the V-8 in its fat, 3,000-6,000 RPM torque band.

Third gear. Full throttle.

Snatch fourth gear. Brush the brakes into a right-hander. Back to third.

SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! Fireworks from the quad exhaust.

Back to throttle.

Sweet V-8 music. And for 2026, it comes in a convertible.

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Chris Graythen, Getty Images

WASHINGTON, D.C. ― The NTT IndyCar Freedom 250 race around the National mall was one of the most electric races in the history of American motorsport. Like the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend, it was a stage unlike any other ― its trophy coveted by drivers and teams.

In execution, however, D.C.’s street race celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday was similar to Penske Entertainment’s annual home race, the Detroit Grand Prix.

The traveling IndyCar circus is the world’s most challenging race series because it tests drivers (and organizers) on venues from 240-mph ovals to writhing road courses to gritty street courses.  This year, IndyCar had five urban slugfests on its 18-race calendar: St. Petersburg, Florida; Long Beach, California; Markham, Ontario; Detroit and D.C.

The latter pair have the most in common. “The track is a lot like Detroit, actually,” said Indy 500 winner and Andretti Global ace Marcus Ericsson in a trackside D.C. interview. “Very bumpy with a long front straight that is the best spot to pass.”

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Henry Payne, The Detroit News

While the Elantra N takes inspiration from its IMSA Michelin Pilot-class, championship-winning Elantra with a scowling fascia covered in more black greasepaint than Baltimore Ravens Hall-of-Famer Ray Lewis, my Kia tester is dressed for a night on the town.

The elegant front end is framed by Cadillac-like vertical DRLs (Daytime Runing Lights) that glow orange. Look at them head-on and they remind of a Fu Manchu mustache at the corners of Kia’s signature tiger grille. The distinctive styling continues in the rear with a red horizontal taillight that turns down at the ends like, well, a handlebar mustache. It’s cool.

“Wow, very dramatic,” said friend Lisa as Mrs. Payne and I picked her up for a night out.

It’s reminiscent of the Stinger GT that turned heads in the market from 2018-24. It changed consumers’ perception of Kia. Like K4, it was a hatchback with can’t-turn-my-eyes-away styling. And man was it affordable, offering Audi A7-like performance for two-thirds the price.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — In one of the most extraordinary events in America’s year-long celebration of its 250^th birthday, the Freedom 250 Grand Prix brought IndyCars to the nation’s capital Sunday, August 23 to race around the National Mall. Organized by American racing legend Roger Penske, the event was wrapped in a red-white-and-blue who’s-who of Americana: U.S. Air Force aircraft flyovers, the president of the United States lapping the track in a Cadillac limo and Andretti Global racing team’s popular American driver Kyle Kirkwood holding the trophy.

The winning powertrain manufacturer? Honda Motor Co.

The prominence of the Japanese automaker in the historic U.S. event is a testament to the integration of the Tokyo-based brand in American life. If Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Ford Motor Co. are U.S. brand ambassadors abroad, Honda is as American as, well, the Freedom 250.

With nearly 10% of the U.S. auto market, Honda shares the same challenges as domestic automakers from regulatory changes to tariffs to rising Chinese competition. At the Freedom 250, top Honda executives, drivers and engineers joined in celebrating an America that has brought Honda riches well beyond Japanese borders.

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Henry Payne, The Detroit News

WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the 670-horsepower, 5.5-liter V-8 engine screaming behind my ear at a stratospheric 8,400 RPM, the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 hit 135 mph on west-bound Pennsylvania Avenue before hot shoe and General Motors’ Vice President for Product Programs and Motorsport Ken Morris buried the brakes into Turn 2 and pulled the eyeballs out of my head.

And no cops pulled us over.

The nation’s capital has hosted military flyovers, parades, and riots over its 226-year history but it has never seen anything like the NTT IndyCar Freedom 250 Grand Prix that will race around the National Mall Saturday and Sunday, August 22-23.

I got a taste on my Friday afternoon hot lap of what it’s like to go (legally) 110 mph over the 25 mph speed limit down Washington’s six-lane main street that connects the White House and the Capitol Building. This weekend, IndyCar’s will top that by another 50 mph – hitting 185 before diving into Turn 2, the best passing opportunity on the track.

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