2003 Honda Pilot; Shuttle diplomacy: Your Passport has been canceled, SUV buyers; apply for a Pilot today.(Honda will replace mid-size Passport sport utility vehicle with Pilot model)(Brief Article)

Brace yourself, America, the Isuzu-made Honda Passport will soon be no more. Now, now, stiff upper lip. That vehicle will still be sold separately as the Isuzu Rodeo, so you can stock up on those, but the last Honda-badged Passport/Rodeo rolled off the assembly line in December and Honda plans to let them dribble off dealer lots for the rest of 2002. But shed no tears for the Passport, my friend, because Honda has bigger plans for you midsize-SUV buyers.

The Honda Pilot is an all-new, Honda-designed-from-the-ground-up midsize SUV that plugs the hole in the Honda lineup formerly plugged by the Passport. But that's where the similarity ends.

The Pilot is basically a softer-sprung version of the Acura MDX, with a more rounded exterior and increased storage space inside. The MDX, in turn, is essentially a four-wheel-drive Odyssey minivan in SUV guise, and the Odyssey itself is just an Accord with more sheetmetal. But Honda is not wording it that way.

The Pilot is ``The Family Adventure SUV,'' according to its maker. Or, in full Honda-speak (we are not making this up), the styling concept was ``based on the Pacific Northwest,'' the exterior was styled after a Pelican carrying case, the interior follows the design brief of a backpack and the eight-passenger seating is called ``stadium seating.''

So that would make it, what, a Grateful Dead concert at Safeco Field in Seattle?

No. It's actually a lot closer to the MDX than you might think and a lot more fun to drive than many of the midsize SUVs with which it competes. The Pilot, which will roll off the Alliston, Ontario, assembly line, gets the same powerful 240-horsepower, 242-lb-ft 3.5-liter V6 as the MDX. Unlike the more traditional, pushrod truck-based SUVs offered by domestic makers, the Pilot's power and torque peak fairly high on the rev band. Power tops out at 5400 rpm and torque at 4500. Those aren't bad figures by class standards. Pilot beats the Toyota Highlander, Dodge Durango and Ford Explorer in peak horsepower, but gets stomped in torque by its Dodge rival (with V8 power) and by the six-cylinder Chevy TrailBlazer, which also beats it soundly in horsepower.

The MDX's three-rocker VTEC system does its best to spread power and torque across a wider swath of engine speeds, but it feels strongest up top. The VTEC system changes to the higher-lift cam lobes at 4300 rpm for a decidedly un-SUV-like high-rev boost for acceleration and passing on the paved highway. Honda lists 0 to 62 mph at 9.3 seconds. The VTEC can also switch back to a more truck-like torque output when hauling to allow for a boat-trailering 4500-pound towing capacity.