Honda's Space Oddity

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Is it me or has the new Odyssey Concept, which is supposed to preview the styling of the next-gen model, taken a few too many protein pills? Let’s hope that the production version (arriving this fall) will capture a little more of the original Odyssey’s clean, stripped-down look. Remember, if we’ve learned anything from the Nissan Quest, it’s that minivans can easily be overstyled into irrelevance.


Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Regularttc Regularttc on Feb 12, 2010

    Design is nice, but the 2011 SE Sienna is the best looker of the minivans today. Hopefully Honda will do away with the "Lightning Bolt" beltline that detracts here just as it does on Lincoln's MkT. The interior of the Honda looks very promising. 3 real sized seats for the second row vs. the laughable 'wedge' in the previous Gen. and now in the new 11 Sienna; useless except to sound good in a brochure. Our 2005 Sienna XLE has 8 real seats and a very confident not overstated exterior. When Toyota changed to the smiley faced Grill and revised front, they lost it. Same for the previous Chryslers; very poised and nice soft touch interior feel. New 11 Sienna unfortunately has sadly upped the Hard Plastic Surfaces Quotient. So as a previous 99' Mercury Villager, 02' Honda Odyssey, and current 05 Sienna (ready for new!) owner, I sum the current offerings up like this. Exterior leader, 11 Sienna SE, (actually sporty looking), Interior leader, should be Odyssey as Press release speaks of being able to put 3 child seats in 2nd row. Bottom line for us, is 8 life size passenger ability and acceptable looks and 28 MPG for the new Ody, looks like van #4 will be an Odyssey. (I'll just fabricate a small body panel to correct and eliminate the Honda/Lincoln 'Lightning Bolt' to 'correct' the kinked bodyline to a nicely executed, uninterupted beltline. cheers

  • Caraholica Caraholica on Feb 13, 2010

    As the owner of an '06 Odyssey with 117k miles I really like the updated and integrated looks of this version. Hopefully, the smoother design cues will make it into production. A good portion of my miles have been between southern california and western colorado and the road manners of the current version are excellent. Whether it's empty or loaded to the gunwales, traveling is a delight on those trips. If they can keep that and add these good looks, then I'm a goner again. It might even make up for the last 3 versions of the Accord.

  • Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh A prelude is a bad idea. There is already Acura with all the weird sport trims. This will not make back it's R&D money.
  • Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
  • Redapple2 Love the wheels
  • Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
  • Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
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