X

Honda is building a new Passport at an Indy race, pop-up style

A skilled crew of Honda factory workers from Alabama will build the SUV over three days at Barber Motorsports Park.

Kyle Hyatt Former news and features editor
Kyle Hyatt (he/him/his) hails originally from the Pacific Northwest, but has long called Los Angeles home. He's had a lifelong obsession with cars and motorcycles (both old and new).
Kyle Hyatt
2019 Honda Passport
Enlarge Image
2019 Honda Passport

Honda is going to build one of these, live and in front of a crowd at an Indy race. It's gonna be wild.

Steven Ewing/Roadshow

Pretty much everyone knows that modern cars are complicated machines. Like, unbelievably complicated. The factories that build them are massive, spanning hundreds of thousands of square feet, employing many robots and thousands of people to help the assembly process along.

But, what if all that stuff wasn't necessary. What if all you needed was a few skilled people, around 2,000 parts, three days and an Indy race in Alabama? Crazy right? Well, that's not stopping from giving it a whirl at Barber Motorsports Park this weekend.

Read the 2019 Honda Passport review

You read that right. Honda announced Sunday that it's going to attempt to build a brand new Passport live, in front of a crowd at the Honda Indy Grand Prix in Alabama. Think of it as a pop-up restaurant, but even less useful when you're hungry and way more time-consuming.

We've been watching the Honda crew do a practice run for a while now online, and it's more than a little mesmerizing. The time-lapse videos are especially good. If you want to check those out, Honda has a website set up with all of them.

Even better, Honda is planning on streaming the whole build live this weekend, and who knows, the race to finish this Passport in three days may end up being better than the actual Indy race.

2019 Honda Passport: A name from the past returns for Honda's new SUV

See all photos