Checkered
Flag Honda might want to send AutoBlog.com a special thank
you this week. The nationally trusted automotive news site is
well known for their candid and reliable vehicle reviews. And
this month, they decided to try out the all-new
2011
Honda Odyssey.
Now I check out many of the
top automotive web journals on a weekly basis, and never (I mean NEVER)
have I seen a mainstream newbie receive such praise as the 2011
Odyssey.
The following article was posted
Jan. 18, 2011 on AutoBlog.com. It has been edited slightly for
length, but this one is so good, I left much more in than our normal
readers are used to.
Start of
article:
?After driving the new Odyssey
for a week, I have serious van envy. Honda has crafted the ultimate,
state-of-the-art people mover, even if it's not much more than some
flashy design and incremental improvements in areas like powertrain,
fuel efficiency and equipment.
The biggest changes in
the redesigned Odyssey are obvious at first glance, as it no longer
looks so much like a conventional minivan. Honda's ideas on styling have
been polarizing as of late, so it's smart that the company chose the
Civic as the donor of the new minivan's face. The venerable compact is
still the most complete and fluid execution of modern Honda design
language, and what it lends to the Odyssey works to make Honda's largest
vehicle appear smaller and sleeker. It helps that the Odyssey has a
lower and much wider stance, having been stretched over two inches
across.
While its front and back sections don't
exactly mate up well in profile, each works on its own. The flying
buttress D-pillar helps the rear end achieve a more contemporary look,
like that of many crossovers. Honda is calling the quirky jog in the
beltline at the Odyssey's C-pillar a "lightning bolt," and it's more
than just a clever device to give the vehicle a dynamic, moving-forward
look. That little dip makes the third-row windows bigger and increases
the feeling of roominess for passengers in the way
back.
Honda clearly wants to make the back of the bus
a more desirable place to ride, and it's come up with some enticing new
features to serve the rear-seaters' needs. The first is that the third
row now has two sets of LATCH anchors, while the second row can be had
with three. These carseat attachments mean more than horsepower to
breeder parents, and the Odyssey has more of them than the competition.
The second row is interesting in that Honda has
decided not to follow Chrysler into its folly of designing seats to fold
into the floor like those in the third row. Understanding that it's the
rare day when you want to use your minivan like a pickup truck, Honda
instead designed a system that allows the second-row seats to be moved
laterally to make more room for passengers or car seats, while improving
third-row access through the center in the process. The optional
second-row-center seat can even be moved forward to place an infant
carseat closer to mom and pop in the front. This is smart engineering
trumping gimmicky marketing.
Up front, the cockpit
is functional and the controls are similar to any number of other Honda
or Acura vehicles (save for a dash-mounted shift lever).
Behind the wheel, the Odyssey is a nice driver, though it no longer
feels as much like an Accord. It's not that this new version of what
used to be the best driving minivan on the market can't corner, but that
the steering doesn't provides as much feel as its
predecessor.
If the Odyssey drives more like a
minivan than a station wagon now, it certainly doesn't accelerate like
one. Honda's 3.5-liter V6 makes 248 horsepower in the 2011 Odyssey,
along with 250 pound-feet of torque. It revs quickly and has great
throttle response, and Honda has done a masterful job of matching the
gear ratios of the new, optional six-speed automatic transmission to
make the Odyssey move. This is a minivan than can go quicker than it
should, at least with babies onboard.
Honda has also
included its Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) system as standard
equipment. This shuts down two or three of the V6's cylinders when
they're not needed, improving fuel economy. This and some other
measures, including a 50-to-100 pound weight reduction, have helped the
Odyssey boast some impressive EPA numbers for a roughly 4,400-pound
vehicle. With the standard five-speed automatic, the van is rated at 18
mpg city, 21 combined and 27 on the highway. The six-speed automatic
improves each of those numbers by a single mile-per-gallon, and that's
tops among any vehicle that can carry eight
passengers.
No minivan these days
would be complete without some sort of video screen for the kids, and
Honda has gone big in this department with an optional 16.2-inch
widescreen that folds down from the headliner in the second row. (A more
conventional nine-inch screen is also available.) Before you get too
excited about having a display larger than a MacBook Pro in the Odyssey,
however, understand this is really just two normal-sized displays mated
into a single, wide LCD panel. While it's possible to stretch out a
single video source to cover the entire screen in a grotesquely
distorted aspect ratio, the more useful application is to allow each
side of the vehicle to select a separate input source for their half of
the screen, choosing from the DVD player, composite auxiliary inputs and
an HDMI port.
While this HDMI port is bound to get
video game geeks excited, it's more of a way for Honda to future-proof
its van than anything else. The screen in the Odyssey is still pretty
small, making most modern video games designed for widescreen,
high-definition displays difficult. Your World of Warcraft addiction
will have to be a lot more severe than mine to want to play in the back
of an Odyssey.
As fantastic as the Odyssey is,
there's a bigger question at hand: Can it (or Toyota's "Swagger Wagon,"
or a nicely revamped Grand Caravan from Dodge, or the all-new Nissan
Quest) convince the masses that minivans aren't the automotive
equivalent of wearing sweatpants? Surely there are a sizable amount of
people who wouldn't drive a minivan even if it came with a personal
invitation from Rob Halford himself. But Honda thinks that this market
is primed for growth, and that's reasonable speculation. With plenty of
consumers making the SUV-to-crossover jump in the interest of cutting
their fuel bills while maintaining a capacious interior, giving minivans
another look is the smart thing to do.
End of
article.
You might be surprised that I left that last
bit in there. But, I think it is important to remember that
these minivans haven't been the height of fashion in many many
years. It's fantastic that today's drivers are looking back to
comfort and safety and giving the minivan another go. If
you're still skeptical, come visit us here at
Checkered
Flag Honda, your Hampton Roads
Honda
on Virginia Beach Blvd, and check out the
2011
Odyssey for yourself. I guarantee you will be
pleasantly surprised.
For questions or to
schedule a test drive call (757)490-1111 and ask for Checkered Flag
Honda.
