Honda Racing Corporation USA has built a hybrid Passport trophy truck, and Carscoops puts its output at more than 1,300 horsepower. Honda’s own announcement, as relayed by Racer and Motor1, rounds the figure to 1,300. The truck is aimed at the top Trophy Truck class of the SCORE World Desert Championship, where Honda says no hybrid has raced before.
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Honda unveiled it at a private event in Downtown Los Angeles on October 29, 2026, and the public gets a first look at the HRC booth at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, November 3 to 6. Two-time Baja 1000 winner Bryce Menzies will drive it, with a racing debut slated for the Baja 500 in June 2027.
Menzies Motorsports and Race Service hosted the October 29 debut, and Mason Motorsports, named in the Carscoops report as its development partner, built the truck with Honda. Autoguide lists the first race of the 2027 SCORE series for March 2027, with the truck itself expected at the Baja 500, held June 2 to 6. The sequence gives the team roughly seven months between the SEMA stage and the first race that counts.
A turbo V6 and an 800-volt battery
Carscoops reports that the powertrain starts with a 2.4-liter V6 and a pair of turbochargers, with close ties to the engine in Acura’s ARX-06 endurance racer, mated to a five-speed transmission developed by Mason. Honda describes the hybrid layer as an 800-volt system built in-house by HRC. The Carscoops report says the battery is a previous-generation Formula 1-style pouch cell in a carbon fiber case, assembled and validated in a clean room at Honda’s Santa Clarita headquarters.
Two numbers are missing. Honda has not disclosed the battery’s capacity or how much of the 1,300 horsepower comes from the electric side. Nor does every outlet mention the hybrid at all: the write-ups from Motor1 and Autoguide quote 1,300 horsepower and describe a race truck built on the Passport name without detailing the electrified hardware. Autoguide notes that last year’s Baja Passport concept used a twin-turbocharged V6.
Software does much of the work. Carscoops says proprietary code links the powertrain, the chassis and energy management, and that Honda calls one function “AI power deployment,” meaning the system decides when to release battery power, with settings adjustable mid-race. Carscoops borrows a line for the introduction to the hardware: this is not anyone’s mom’s Passport. The road-going SUV that lends the name, in other words, supplies a badge and a silhouette rather than parts.
Mason’s chassis, Fox shocks and a 145-gallon fuel cell
The truck rides on a modified version of Mason’s Gen 2 all-wheel-drive chassis, with a rear section specific to HRC to hold the hybrid hardware. Dual Fox shocks sit at each corner, and Toyo supplies the tires. Drive goes to all four wheels through two rear driveshafts, with individual angled gearsets at the rear wheels instead of a conventional ring-and-pinion and portal gearsets at the front hubs to add ground clearance. Brake-by-wire on each axle and adaptive traction control tie into proprietary software that Honda says can adjust settings during a race.
Mason is also the builder behind the Ford that Menzies drives in 2026 in Unlimited Truck 4WD, so the partnership is familiar territory for the driver. The weight sits in an unusual place: a 145-gallon carbon-Kevlar fuel cell in the center of the cab, which Carscoops estimates adds about 899 pounds when full, while batteries and other fixed components go toward the rear. Carbon fiber body panels, channels behind the front wheels and high exhaust outlets finish the look, and the cab is shaped to feed air to a low, rear-mounted cooler.
Honda’s Baja record and the 2027 target
The program leans on history. Racer’s account of the announcement recalls that in 1962 Dave Ekins and Bill Robertson Jr. rode two Honda CL72 motorcycles from Tijuana to La Paz in 39 hours and 56 minutes. Honda motorcycles have since taken 22 overall Baja victories, and its four-wheel program has 17 class wins since 2015, including four at the Baja 1000 and five at the Baja 500.
Those figures matter to the pitch. A four-wheel Honda effort that has won four Baja 1000 class titles is now stepping into the class where the largest budgets and the most powerful trucks run, and doing it with an electrified drivetrain which Honda says is a first for that class.
HRC says it will bring technology from Honda’s Formula 1, IndyCar, IMSA and Baja programs to the truck, and Carscoops reports the stated goal of an overall Baja 1000 win tied to that race’s 60th anniversary in 2027. Between now and the June 2027 Baja 500, the open questions are practical: whether an 800-volt pack can survive hundreds of miles of desert washboard, and whether Honda will ever publish the electric share of its 1,300 horsepower.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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