Can a Bone-Stock Honda Beat a Built Subaru? 4 Questions for the 2026 Rebelle Rally
A bone-stock Passport, a title-defending Forester on 30-inch tires, and a MINI that isn't on sale yet will all chase the same X-Cross class across 1,500 miles of desert.
The 2026 Rebelle Rally starts today, and its most interesting fight may be in the crossover class. Honda, Subaru, and MINI are all sending factory-backed unibody SUVs into X-Cross, and each has prepared its car to a completely different standard.
Honda is running a bone-stock 2027 Passport TrailSport. Subaru defends its title in a heavily modified Forester Hybrid. MINI, at its first Rebelle, brings a lightly outfitted Countryman Untamed Edition, a model U.S. buyers won't get until early 2027.
The green flag drops at Las Vegas Motor Speedway at 7 a.m. PT on October 8. Crews then cover about 1,500 miles of Nevada, California, and Utah with paper maps, a compass, and roadbooks. GPS is banned, and points come from finding checkpoints, not from speed. Under the rally's class rules, unibody vehicles without a low-range transfer case run in X-Cross, while low-range 4x4s have their own class. Scoring wraps up on October 17.
1. Can a stock Passport keep up with a built Forester?
This is the clearest test in the field. Subaru's Team 200, Carey Lando and Andrea Shaffer, return in the same 2025 Forester Hybrid that won X-Cross last year. It now runs 30-inch Milestar Patagonia A/T Pro tires, Anderson Design & Fabrication underbody armor, a TORQ locker, RaceWorks coilovers, and RalliTEK adjustable rear arms. A showroom Forester Hybrid has 8.7 inches of ground clearance.
Honda's Passport keeps its factory chassis, suspension, 3.5-liter V6, 10-speed automatic, and i-VTM4 all-wheel drive. What it does bring is the 2027 TrailSport's reworked suspension, which raises ground clearance to 9.65 inches from 8.27. Honda hasn't confirmed whether the team will run factory tires.
The format narrows the hardware gap, since a missed checkpoint costs more than a slow climb. Still, a Passport finishing close to the Subaru would say more about Honda's production parts than any spec sheet.
2. Can Subaru make it three in a row?
Lando and Shaffer won X-Cross in 2024 in Lando's personal 2014 Outback, then again in 2025 in the Forester Hybrid, taking each of the first five scored stages. The overall 2025 win went to Nena Barlow and Teralin Petereit in a Jeep Gladiator.
Barlow is back as well. Jeep's August announcement confirms a stock Gladiator Mojave for Team 129, with first-time competitor Hannah Felton, in the brand's 11th straight year as a Rebelle sponsor. With its low-range transfer case, the Gladiator falls under the 4x4 rules and won't race the crossovers directly.
3. How much of the MINI is actually stock?
MINI calls the rally the competitive debut of the Untamed Edition. In the U.S., that model adds a suspension lift worth up to 19 mm (about 0.75 inch) of ground clearance, retuned ABS, stability control, and steering, 19-inch wheels, and a factory hitch rated at 3,500 pounds. The S ALL4 Untamed starts at $43,900 before destination.
The rally car, No. 206, goes further. MINI lists Thule, Pelican Cases, Morimoto Lighting, Heinlein Racing Development, and MINI Tire Center among its outfitting partners. Its photos show a roof rack with a storage case, auxiliary lights on the roof and in the grille, and Toyo Open Country A/T tires instead of the Pirelli Scorpion all-terrains on the production Untamed. MINI hasn't said whether the car is the gas S ALL4 or the electric SE ALL4, or whether it applied for Bone Stock status.
Driver Felicia Killman competes in the American Rally Association and has navigated for the MINI JCW Rally Team. Navigator Erika Ferrer, a member of BMW Group's communications team in Mexico, won three straight regional co-driver championships there. It is a rally-savvy crew, but the brand arrives with no Rebelle record of its own.
4. Will anyone take the Bone Stock Award?
The award goes to the top-scoring team in a completely stock vehicle, and inspectors check only cars whose teams applied for the designation before the start. Last year, a nearly production-spec BMW X5 won it while finishing second in X-Cross, according to MINI. BMW Group has entered every Rebelle since 2019, moving from a Rolls-Royce Cullinan through the X2, X3, and X5. This year, MINI takes that slot.
Honda is the obvious contender. Its Passport is entered in the X-Cross Bone Stock category, and the company has treated the event as development work before: skid plates built for its 2021 Ridgeline entry later became standard on the 2023 Pilot TrailSport, according to Honda. TrailSport versions make up more than 80% of Passport sales, and the lifted model starts at $49,995, so a Bone Stock win would double as a sales pitch.
What to watch
The route runs north to south and finishes near the Imperial Sand Dunes in Southern California. The dunes are where a locker and 30-inch tires should matter most, and where a stock crossover has the most to prove.
Each class names a daily stage winner, so the standings will take shape through the week. We'll update this page with results after scoring closes on October 17.
