Automakers are bringing some wild builds to SEMA, and Honda isn’t going to miss out on the action.
Another round of SEMA concepts are just around the corner, and Honda is taking the opportunity to show what it’s bringing to the party next week. On Tuesday, the company showed off some off-road-themed builds, courtesy of Honda Racing Corporation, its official racing arm. The most exciting among those is the car you’re seeing in the adjacent photos: a Civic Type R HRC Rally XP racer.
“But wait,” I hear you ask: “Isn’t the Honda Civic Type R front-wheel drive? How is that going to work?”
Well, it’s not suddenly powering the rear wheels, awesome though that might be. Instead, this car will compete in the American Rally Association’s 2WD class, with F1 driver Liam Lawson at the wheel. It’s still a street-legal CTR, but it’s bringing in lessons learned from the HART Acura Integra rally car and raiding the HRC parts catalog for some off-road upgrades.
Beyond the HRC livery, the Civic Type R HRC Rally XP brings rally-prepped suspension, a tubular subframe supported aluminum skid plate as well as a host of other underbody protection, a custom exhaust, carbon fiber hydraulic handbrake and different brakes sized for (smaller) rally wheels. It pulls from the existing HRC catalog in bringing camber/caster plates, an oil cooler kit, intercooler, radiator with reverse cooling flow hoses and TCR hood vents to the table. Despite being two-wheel drive, the rally car will also fare a bit better by way of having a clutch-type limited-slip differential to distribute the power from the Type R’s 315-horsepower K20C1 engine.
Outside showing the car off at SEMA, Honda says it’s evaluating the rally-spec Civic Type R for commercial racing programs.
Finally, a Passport with more ground clearance!
While you can’t just go out and buy a Civic Type R rally car, the Honda Passport HRC Concept is an idea of what could possibly come to pass. Again, thanks to parts from the HRC catalog, you can personalize and upgrade your Passport TrailSport, which is already a pretty capable SUV from the factory, with the one sticking point being (lack of) ground clearance.
Here, the Passport HRC Concept rings more underbody protection to the equation, covering critical items like the center bearing, driveshaft and rear drive unit. Redesigned front and rear bumpers improve approach and departure angles, while a 60-millimeter (2.3-inch) suspension lift also addresses the clearance issue while also improving breakover, as well. Along with the lift, this Passport also gets an inch of extra tire diameter (so 32 inches), wider rock sliders and a swing-out tire carrier capable of holding a full-size spare. With the initial launch, Honda displayed a setup where the full-size spare could mount vertically in the cargo area like a Jeep Cherokee XJ, but that would obviously cut into the cargo volume.
That’s actually a fairly decent list of performance upgrades, but there’s plenty of stuff to cover on the accessory front, too. The Passport HRC Concept gets a low-profile roof rack, a light bar up top, ditch lights and rear chase lights. You even get an integrated air compressor and 8,000-pound winch…and HRC decals galore, because of course you need those.
Inside, the Passport HRC gets branded blue Alcantara seat inserts, as well as several new mounting panels throughout the car. In short: This is Honda’s best effort yet of building an unequivocally off-road capable Passport TrailSport. It’s not headed for production yet, of course, but depending on your feedback, it may actually happen, or you could possibly at least get the parts to build one up yourself.
Honda’s other SEMA debuts
Sticking with the Passport for a moment, Honda’s also bringing its Baja Passport race truck to this year’s SEMA. It finished second in the Baja 500 race, and will take on the longer Baja 1000 next month as it aims to show this car’s off-road chops to the masses.
Also hitting SEMA is an updated version of the Acura Integra Type S HRC Prototype. Last year, the automaker brought a host of street and track-focused upgrades to last year’s show, and we’re getting another take here. This time around, we get new forged wheels derived from the ARX-06 race car, for a start. The updated build also gets “advanced aerodynamics”, some weight reduction and “uprated” suspension components. So it brings a similar vibe to last year’s car, just all around better.
SEMA will kick off in Las Vegas on November 4, so stay tuned for more updates from the show — Roman, Andre and Kase will be on the ground covering all the latest and greatest.
