As a certified car guru, I am often asked for my opinion about vehicles people are thinking of buying.
Even members of my own family ask me about cars on occasion, a group who tend to ignore my opinions on just about everything else, like turning out the lights when they leave a room, for instance.
It was in this tradition that my son, Erik, who lives in a tiny town called Mead, Colo., phoned me last year and asked my advice on buying a minivan. With two small children to cart around, he and his wife, Jan, were finding their old Nissan Pathfinder a bit cramped.
Sounding like that farmer Hoggett look-alike in those old Subaru XT commercials, I replied, "Well, son, if I were in the market for a minivan, I'd get a Honda Odyssey. And you should, too."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and then he replied: "Uh, I don't think so, Dad. Some friends of ours have an Odyssey and it's pretty small for a minivan."
I felt a rush of joy at his words. My son is smarter than me and makes a lot more money, but for once I knew something he didn't, an event that last occurred when he was in fifth grade.
"No, no, son," I rejoined. "You're thinking of the old Odyssey, the gutless, four-cylinder version built on the Accord platform, the one with the four swing-out doors instead of sliders. Honda has come out with an all-new Odyssey minivan with a V6 and it's a beauty. It's a traditional minivan, like the Dodge Caravan."
This was, indeed, news to him and he promised to check it out, although at the time he was leaning toward the new Oldsmobile Silhouette, the first minivan to have an on-board movie theater and a vehicle I had earlier given a positive review.
As we were about to hang up, Erik asked me to send him a copy of my review on the new Odyssey. I replied that I couldn't do that because I hadn't reviewed one yet.
Well, he responded, what did you think when you drove it? The thing is, I stammered, I haven't, you know, actually driven one yet.
There was another long moment of silence on the line, but it was OK because he was paying for the call.
"Wait a minute, Dad. Are you telling me to buy a minivan you haven't even driven yet?"
Well, yes, that's precisely what I was doing. No, I hadn't yet driven an Odyssey, but I'd checked it out at the auto show and the automotive "buff books" ("Car & Driver," "Road & Track") had gotten advance looks and were raving about it. Besides, I'd had great luck with Hondas.
He grudgingly said he'd go take a look at an Odyssey, a modest proposal at the time but one that eventually turned into a quest of epic proportions. Erik soon learned that his old man was right about this one. Everyone in Colorado, or so it seemed, wanted a new Odyssey and he found himself on dealership waiting lists with no guarantees.
The story has a happy ending, though. One night he got a call around 10 p.m. from a Longmont dealer. A buyer ahead of him on the list had failed to show up and if Erik could come right down that very night, a dark green Odyssey they had just taken off the truck would be his.
He jumped into his Ford F150 pickup and raced to Longmont, making the deal over his cell phone on the way.
And so it came to pass, earlier this month, when my Colorado family came to visit us in their new minivan, that I finally got my chance to drive a Honda Odyssey.
It was everything I expected and more. Ignoring the minivan craze of the 1980s and '90s had been a big mistake for Honda and it can be argued that it came out with the world's best minivan long after the craze had peaked, but better late than never.
Besides, like the station wagon's, I believe the rumored death of the minivan is greatly exaggerated. Despite its reputation as an uncool "mommy-wagon," the minivan concept is too practical to discard simply because it lacks the macho image of SUVs.
Image, schmimage, I say. The Odyssey will run circles around most SUVs and get better gas mileage doing it — 18 mpg in the city and 26 on the highway. The tank holds 20.5 gallons, giving it a trip range of some 500 miles.
Moreover, the Odyssey has style, power (210 horsepower from the 3.5-liter V6), is fun to drive, has incredible functionality, seats seven comfortably and is so well thought out that it's hard to imagine how they can improve on it. (The only difference between the 1999 and 2000 models that I can discern is an optional navigation system.)
The third-row seat can be folded to fit into the floor, creating a huge cargo area, and the two middle seats can be pushed together to make a single bench or left apart to create captain's chairs. And if you take those seats out, the Odyssey becomes a panel truck capable of hauling 4X8 sheets of plywood.
GM was the first to introduce a power sliding door on its minivans, but Honda is the first with dual power sliding passenger doors, an innovation so obvious and that adds so greatly to the convenience of the vehicle that one wonders why it was so long in coming.
The deal-clincher, of course, is Honda's great reputation for quality, reliability and resale value. In its "2000 Cars" issue, Consumer Reports ranks the Odyssey at the top of the minivan heap.
Odysseys aren't cheap, though, and with demand still so high you probably won't get far dickering on the price. Prices range from $23,400 for the base LX model to $26,000 for the upscale EX model that adds the electric sliding doors, auto-off headlights, eight-way power driver's seat, keyless entry, compact-disc player, six stereo speakers and 16-inch alloy wheels.
There are separate heating/AC controls for each passenger, antilock brakes are standard, the shifter for the four-speed automatic transmission is out of the way on the steering column, and the vehicle is very stable in turns, thanks to the widest track of any minivan and four-wheel independent suspension.
At 16 feet, 8 inches long, it's more than a foot longer than the old Odyssey and nearly as big as the extended-length DaimlerChrysler vans, yet it retains the turning radius of the former Odyssey. (If Honda had come up with a new name for its new van, it would have avoided a lot of confusion.)
Oh, and about the on-board movie theater my son wanted to keep the kids happy. Honda doesn't offer a videotape system as do the GM vans, but Erik solved the problem by buying a portable digital video disc player, which allows him to carry about 30 movies in about the same space as a single VHS tape. Price of the Panasonic player was about the same ($1,200 and dropping) as GM's built-in tape system.
Thanks to the DVD player, on their trip to Salt Lake City earlier this month, my 6-year-old grandson, Ben, didn't make the classic inquiry "Are we there yet?" until they had reached Provo. You can't put a price on that.
E-MAIL: max@desnews.com