Yes! A Honda SUV Finally Has a Picnic Table Again
Thirty years after packing a folding table in every CR-V, Honda is riffing on the idea for the new 2026 Passport.
Grab your camp chairs and prep the charcuterie, because Honda is bringing back the built-in picnic table. The 2026 Honda Passport revives an idea first seen in the original CR-V with a table that stores in the cargo area when it’s not being used for tailgates, kids’ ball games, camping, or spontaneous Monopoly gameplay.
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A picnic table was included as standard equipment in all first- and second-generation Honda CR-Vs where it doubled as the rigid floor beneath the carpeted cargo mat. It was so well integrated—with built-in, pop-out legs and everything—and so poorly communicated, many owners never knew they were driving around with the perfect portable altar for sacrificing a watermelon to the gods of summer.
Some 30 years after the CR-V debuted, the concept has evolved in ways that’ll make the table impossible for Passport owners to miss. For one, buyers will have to shell out $425 to get a table, since it’s now sold as an accessory. The table—officially listed as the Tailgate Table Shelf in Honda's accessories catalog—will also be front of mind every time those owners open the rear hatch, as it stashes on top of the cargo floor or installs in a raised position where it acts as a cargo cover and shelf capable of holding up to 44 pounds. That solves one of the main problems with the earlier versions: CR-V owners had to unload everything from the cargo area to remove the table. While the legs of the CR-V tables folded out from the top, the Passport version uses four legs that thread into the work surface. They’re stored in a drawstring bag that can be packed into the Passport’s underfloor storage bin.
The Passport’s huge 44-cubic-foot cargo hold allows Honda to offer its table a significantly larger surface this time. The CR-V table originally measured 31 by 25 inches and later 34 by 30 inches in the second-gen model. We’re estimating the Passport’s table at 42 by 36 inches based on measurements made with an iPhone camera (which means we could be off by a few inches in each direction). Whatever the exact dimensions, the table provides ample space to set up a camp kitchen or serve dinner for four. The composite tabletop is covered with a grippy, rubberized coating that features a molded-in topographic map of the desert outside Barstow, California, where Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) trains for the Baja 1000.
The redesigned 2026 Honda Passport leans hard into the off-road zeitgeist with two TrailSport trims that feature all-terrain tires, front recovery hooks, underbody skid plates, hill descent control, an available trail camera system, and styling inspired by a backpack. Honda calls it the most capable off-roader the company has ever built, and based on our first drive, the engineers aren’t lying. Along with the picnic table, the expanded accessory catalog includes several new off-road and adventure-oriented add-ons such as stainless-steel rock sliders, a full-size spare, and a platform-style roof rack.
I fell in love with car magazines during sixth-grade silent reading time and soon realized that the editors were being paid to drive a never-ending parade of new cars and write stories about their experiences. Could any job be better? The answer was obvious to 11-year-old me. By the time I reached high school, becoming an automotive journalist wasn’t just a distant dream, it was a goal. I joined the school newspaper and weaseled my way into media days at the Detroit auto show. With a new driver’s license in my wallet, I cold-called MotorTrend’s Detroit editor, who graciously agreed to an informational interview and then gave me the advice that set me on the path to where I am today. Get an engineering degree and learn to write, he said, and everything else would fall into place. I left nothing to chance and majored in both mechanical engineering and journalism at Michigan State, where a J-school prof warned I’d become a “one-note writer” if I kept turning in stories about cars for every assignment. That sounded just fine by me, so I talked my way into GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly plant for my next story. My child-like obsession with cars started to pay off soon after. In 2007, I won an essay contest to fly to the Frankfurt auto show and drive the Saturn Astra with some of the same writers I had been reading since sixth grade. Winning that contest launched my career. I wrote for Jalopnik and Edmunds, interned at Automobile, finished school, and turned down an engineering job with Honda for full-time employment with Automobile. In the years since, I’ve written for Car and Driver, The New York Times, and now, coming full circle, MotorTrend. It has been a dream. A big chunk of this job is exactly what it looks like: playing with cars. I’m happiest when the work involves affordable sporty hatchbacks, expensive sports cars, manual transmissions, or any technology that requires I learn something to understand how it works, but I’m not picky. If it moves under its own power, I’ll drive it.
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