Honda Readies Accord-Based Minivan for U.S. Market
Honda is hoping its Ohio-built Accord, which vies with the Ford Taurus for bragging rights as the country’s best-selling car, will be a strong springboard for a leap into the global minivan market.
The Honda Odyssey, a seven-passenger van based on the Accord chassis but built in Japan, will go on sale in the United States in January. Its competitors will be vehicles that have become more and more sophisticated as the number of minivan buyers has grown to more than a million a year.
The Odyssey will be somewhat smaller than the market’s major players, Chrysler’s Town & Country, Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager, and Ford’s new Windstar. That might initially be a problem.
“But I think when people get in the vehicle and see the flexibility of the vehicle . . . that will go away,” Honda spokesman Art Garner said.
“Our research told us people wanted three things,” he said. “Car-like handling, car-like maneuverability and safety.”
The Odyssey is aimed at buyers who want standard dual air bags, antilock disc brakes, a body that meets crash-test standards for cars and an independent rear suspension for handling, Garner said.
It has two hinged doors on each side and a lift-gate rear door. Its third seat folds flat into the floor, as in some conventional station wagons, with the spare tire stowed to one side.
Honda hopes to sell about 25,000 Odysseys in North America the first year and up to 70,000 worldwide. If sales here are strong, the company might eventually build Odysseys in the United States.
The international plans are part of the reason for Odyssey’s size. Japanese buyers prefer narrower minivans. Toyota, for example, builds a separate, narrower version of the Previa for sales at home.
Garner said a base of potential U.S. Odyssey buyers already exists: “Honda owners that had to go elsewhere in the past when they wanted a minivan.”
Odyssey prices will start at about $23,000 compared to low-end Chryslers and Fords that can be bought for about $6,000 less. It will be powered by a four-cylinder, 140-horsepower engine.
Honda acknowledges that lack of a six-cylinder engine might be a disadvantage. The company is adding a six-cylinder to Accord’s options for 1995, and it is assumed that the new engine eventually will be available for Odyssey.
Honda’s reputation for high-quality, user-friendly vehicles is expected to be a major Odyssey asset.
“The Honda will be interesting to watch because it is smaller, four-cylinder only. It doesn’t fit what we think the minivan market has evolved to,” said Richard A. Winter, minivan general product manager for Chrysler, the industry leader.
“But it is a Honda.”
