00:00One of the things that happens at UTV Driver is we go to a lot of different press launches.
00:03The idea of a press launch is to show off how sexy and cool the new model year, model, rig,
00:09side-by-side, buggy, whatever you want to call it, is. And that's really great. And they talk
00:13about what they've improved and what they've done that's better than the last year's. What
00:16they don't do, however, is they generally don't bring last year's rig to the demonstration. And
00:21you know what? Otherwise, it's just a bunch of spec sheets and it's kind of hard to sort of just
00:24imagine. Well, now we don't have to imagine because Honda has actually brought last year's
00:292025 Honda Pioneer 1000. And so we don't really have to imagine what it's like compared to the
00:35lovely new 2026 model. Having the 2025 here is that you can see it's got sort of the lower sort
00:39of door line. Previously, these opened up like this, but then you had to unattach the netting and so
00:45forth like that. It was kind of a pain. And now we walk over to the new one. And so
00:49you've got sort
00:49of a higher kind of door line that makes ingress and egress a lot simpler and easier. And another
00:54thing you're going to notice when you look at these two side-by-sides, no roof, roof, roof
00:59comes standard on the 2026. That's kind of a big deal, especially when you are baking in the Texas
01:04sun. Other than that, I kind of like it. You know what? Honestly, the front fascia and this sort of
01:08looks kind of aggro, you know, Pioneer isn't really aggro. The new Pioneer kind of looks a little bit
01:14more sort of grown up, a little bit more mature. And there's also a couple other differences that I
01:18want to tell you about. Honda has also upgraded a lot of the heat shielding. Now, you're not going to
01:21see it because it's behind these seats right here, but that means that your butt will bake
01:26slightly less than it did in the 2025 model. All of these things just are incremental improvements
01:31and kind of represent sort of like the spirit of Kaizen in a way. I don't know if they use
01:34that
01:34sort of terminology or nomenclature, but these are all ways that just incrementally make the model
01:38better and better with each year. All of these kind of together make for a fairly significant
01:44upgrade, or at least a good reason for a press launch. We are taking ourselves a little ride out
01:49here in the Rough Creek Ranch or whatever, and we're going to take these Pioneer 1000 Deluxes.
01:55Oh, that has some deluxe features on here. What about that? That is a backup camera there. Let's go into
02:01reverse. There you go. And we're going to take a little ride here in the Texas... Is this the
02:05whole country? I'm not exactly sure. All right. We're going to have a little pony ride here.
02:26This is the glamorous world of power sports journalism. We are part-time models. Everybody's
02:31getting their close-ups and all that and getting a run through being shot by videographers and
02:36photographers that are way better than I am. While we're waiting, though, why don't we sort of check
02:41out and see what life inside a Pioneer looks like? So one of the things we're always sort of
02:45concerned about is storage space. And honestly, that is one of the more impressive glove boxes
02:51I've ever seen. Is it a glove box if it's on a UTV? Probably not. Got a big cubbyhole there.
02:56Oh,
02:56look at that. They put a nice little cleaning cloth down there. Power down here, a conventional sort
03:02of 12-volt cigarette lighter type thing. Kind of odd. They don't have a USB connector, but anyway. Then up
03:08here,
03:08we got four-wheel drive, the diff lock. We got turf mode, and we got four-wheel drive and two
03:13-wheel drive.
03:14We've been in two-wheel drive for the most part. Got resume set. We got the speed limiter there.
03:20Importantly, cancel. And then we got the speed limit thing. I'm gonna check this outlet. And then we got
03:24here, we've got the drive modes. Automatic transmission, manual DCT. And we got some fairly nice
03:30conventional sort of bench seats here. Honestly, kind of look pretty nice. As is standard in this kind
03:35of industry, we do not have a horn. That would be kind of weird if we did. But you see
03:39sort of the
03:40paddle shifters here, going down, going up. And we got, oh, look at that. We'll do that. And we
03:45get a nice, like, little, uh, nice little interior light there. We're gonna go back to off. We got
03:50brights and so forth like that. We'll go off because, uh, oh, it's already kind of bright here.
03:55Oh, see? Towing, hauling, comforts. We got normal and, uh, my favorite, sports. Now we are in manual mode.
04:02So this thing will not shift unless I shift it. I gotta tell you, the DCT, the automatic, is kind
04:08of nice.
04:08Just sort of set it and forget it. It works pretty intuitively. It's kind of nice. It really never
04:12sort of gets in the way. That's some very beautiful horses. Wow, these horses. These ponies want to gallop.
04:22Looks like they want to join us. It's pretty nice. The DCT, the, uh, the, uh, paddle shifters are
04:28really nice and seamless. And what's sort of nice is that you can sort of shift it on the fly.
04:33So before, you see that I, I, I changed it from automatic to, uh, to manual on the fly. Which
04:39is
04:39kind of nice. You don't have to stop and readjust that. Let's try to hit this rock over here. There
04:44we go. Yeah. This is pretty gnarly. This is pretty fun. They told me to put it in low. Just
04:49keep
04:49everything squared up and we should be fine. Whoopsie daisies. Tip toe through the tulips. Spring
04:57break. Woo. Right now you're in tow, tow haul. We're going to just go to comfort mode. Okay. That's
05:03just standard mapping. Yep. We recommend running it in low gear. Okay. You get the most performance
05:08out of it when you're using it to its potential. What we're going to do is I want you to
05:12experience
05:12it in two wheel drive low. Yep. In standard comfort map. Then we'll switch into the next mode,
05:19which will be tow haul. Okay. And then you will drive the same route and feel the difference.
05:23Feel the throttle response difference. That's what we want you to experience. Okay. Comfort versus
05:27tow haul and all the capabilities. Okay. All right. You ready? I'm ready. Full throttle.
05:32Put it in low. See, I was just testing you there.
05:41Kind of feel this. What the, how hard the engine's working right now. Yeah. This is smoother than my
05:472005 Chevy Express 3500. Technology has definitely come a long way. Yeah.
05:52All right. Kind of feel that RPM luggage a little bit. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. You're making a slow
06:00turn like that with the weight. Uh-huh. Now going to tow haul. Now you're already on low. You're good
06:04to
06:04go. Okay. Now you can now feel when you take off the throttle response difference than what you just did.
06:10Okay. And then feel the shifting points are a lot higher because they're pulling weight and you're
06:14having the engine work the way it's designed to. Okay. And you're working this thing now. We've
06:19designed our engineers. This is the best mapping for this type of work. So they have the right
06:25amount of fuel ratios, the right amount of torque. Okay. The shift point. All that has been extended.
06:31Very cool. All right. You ready? Yep. All right. Try to pull a couple G's here. Yeah.
06:37Kind of feel it. Yeah. Very cool. Thank you very much for helping explain that, man. Yes, sir.
06:43So I have hauled a lot of things in my life. I have hauled rigs, crappy motorcycles,
06:48things belonging to ex-girlfriends, my stuff. One thing I have never hauled is,
06:53hey, I'm really good at strapping rigs down. But, uh, hey, anyway, we're here at Rough Creek
06:59testing out the new Honda Pioneer Deluxe. And there's a bunch of cool new features. This thing
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07:46Now, back to the action. This is really nice. Now, we're in four-wheel drive right here. Manual
07:50transmission, automatic. I believe we are in automatic because this thing keeps just sort of
07:55shifting in opportune moments or whatever. So you can sort of go downshift. You can hear that a little
08:02bit there. It's really kind of a big can choose your sort of own adventure with the transmission.
08:06It's very seamless. Honestly, you sort of forget that you need to shift most of the time.
08:11One of Honda's great sort of superpowers, as it were, is really just the idea of like creating
08:16usable machines. Everything is really kind of just designed around the driver usability and experience.
08:22And this is obviously going to get a lot of duty on trails, private lands, and such like that. It
08:29is,
08:29in essence, a utility machine. But even as such, there's a lot of really, really nice features. Now,
08:35you look up here at this. You can see you can toggle back and forth between a front view.
08:40And now you get a sort of a split screen kind of view right there, which is sort of neat.
08:43And wow,
08:44there's even a light. Check that out. That's kind of wild. Anyway, this machine is just fantastic.
08:48They're fairly unapologetic about just making machines that each generation, each iteration
08:54of each model year is simply just easier to use and is better. Honda really does things their way.
09:00It really kind of represents like really one of their flagship models. They didn't come out with the
09:03talent until I believe it was 2019. There really was just a pioneer. Honda made very simple,
09:09very easy to use UTVs that could transport people. Probably sort of hung its hat on the
09:14fact that it was kind of a convertible in a sense that you could remove the back seat and for
09:20more
09:20storage and such that you're not just up with a four seater or a two seater. You have the capabilities
09:24to kind of have the best of both sort of worlds. And the pioneer really eschewed any kind of sort
09:29of
09:29aggressive image like a defender or a ranger or whatever. Honda makes friendly machines that do
09:35their jobs quietly and efficiently. Anyway, the concept of coming out to Rough Creek is that we
09:42are supposed to see the pioneer in a place where it's actually going to be used, which is a ranch.
09:47And there is nowhere in America that has bigger ranches than Texas.
09:50All right, now we're getting a little muddy. Apparently they got a fair amount of rain,
09:54so everything is still kind of lush green, which is pretty nice.
09:59Oh, it's so funny. It's so nice how Maddie and the lead car are diligently avoiding all the
10:05puddles for the sake of all of us journalists and influencers. That's very nice. However, I
10:11avoid to hit every single mud puddle standing body of water possible. Hey, we got some nice cows here.
10:18We are going to let these cows go where they want to go and we're not going to mess with
10:23them.
10:23It's a really great snappy throttle response, honestly. One of the things that they've done
10:27besides sort of the facelift kind of change, mine here gets throttle by wire, which makes it smoother
10:34and also snappier. This is nice. And obviously this is just a sort of utility vehicle. But if you
10:42punch the throttle, this has got a little giddy up and go. I believe these are restricted to 40 miles
10:47an
10:47hour. It's kind of a good time to point out. I believe we're in high. I would kind of like
10:51to go
10:51low, but I don't believe that we could shift while we're in motion. That's usually kind of bad
10:56in side-by-sides. Kind of nice. It still sort of rocks and rolls a little bit. It still kind
11:00of
11:01makes all the clunky noises, all the other stuff that kind of lets you know that ARMs are doing
11:06their thing and that stuff is rattling around. The bed is kind of, you know, on its bushings and so
11:11forth like that. Honestly, there's a reason why we drive these instead of pickup trucks.
11:16Oh, see? I think it's a nice little throttle response there. I do believe we are in sport.
11:21Oh, yeah, we are. See, right there. We will have to wait until we get a Pioneer press rig at
11:28UTV
11:28Driver. Maybe then we'll take it to Windrock. So apparently I'm supposed to watch out for rocks
11:33under trees. Oh, this is the place they're talking about here. Okay, we're going to get one.
11:39Hey, look at that. I got the cruise control to work. There we go.
11:44Yeah, just set it like there. Just go up, down. This is to set it so you get that little
11:49green
11:50button right there. And of course, if need be, just touch the brakes and rides all over. See,
11:56that's a great test of something. I have no idea how to make it work. I literally just looked at
12:00the
12:00controls and after a couple of tries, I just figured it out at speed. Not bad.
12:04Sorry, I just saw this one beautiful lone, what looks like a live oak tree. Kind of looks like
12:09that one that they had in England that those two guys cut down because they were jerks. Anyway,
12:13some final thoughts about the 2027 Honda Pioneer 1000 Deluxe. This is a rig that honestly kind of
12:19gives me the feels of the Yamaha R-Max. They're not really the same thing. It's kind of apples and
12:24oranges. Both the Honda Pioneer and the Yamaha R-Max kind of punch above their weight. The Pioneer is more
12:29than just the sum of a bunch of things on a spec sheet. The spec sheet will tell you everything
12:33that the Honda Pioneer is and what it can do and what it has and what it is and what
12:37it was and
12:38everything else like that. Honda just makes products that are supremely usable and that are great and
12:42that are really well put together and are just made for the maximum amount of usability by the user,
12:47ease of use and everything else like that. And although this rig has had a thorough redesign,
12:51the roof, the thrower by wire and everything else like that, it honestly just adds up to a package that
12:56is
12:57smarter, better and more usable. And Honda won't tell you this, but it's actually really fun to drive
13:02as well. Getting after some of the narrow rocky sort of hills and stuff, the suspension is absolutely
13:08dialed. Now, obviously, these are very new press rigs. And so, of course, they don't have the rattles
13:13and squeaks that all models get eventually over time. However, there is a marked difference between
13:19the 2027 and the 2026, even though wheelbase is the same, width is the same. A lot of things are
13:25really the same. But this is just a rig that's just put together that honestly sort of begs for
13:29abuse and not the kind of abuse that Honda normally asks for in terms of neglected maintenance, etc,
13:35etc, etc. This is a rig that really honestly punches above its weight. You know what? It's going
13:39to do all the things that you want it to do as far as utility goes, but there's a little
13:43bit of
13:43wreck thrown in there too. Anyway, this has been a really great time. Honda put on a great event. It's
13:47really gorgeous out here. It's lovely to get back to the Texas hill country. I think this is the hill
13:51country anyway. That about wraps things up from the 2027 Honda Pioneer 1000 Deluxe press launch,
13:57coming at you from Rough Creek Resort outside of Dallas here in the lovely state of Texas.
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14:23days a week. And we have videos coming out bi-weekly. See you out on the trails, America. You're welcome.
14:29Um,
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