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2014 Honda Odyssey Touring
Words by TREVOR HOFMANN
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We all love good ideas, and the new
Odyssey is full of them. For one, the
bin at the base of the centre stack can
be upgraded to cool drinks. For another,
they’ve included a built-in Shop-Vac in the
all-new 2014 Odyssey Touring, a brilliant
idea that’s bound to be as popular with
parent s as it is with the young’uns. 2014
models also provide two large infotainment
screens on the centre stack, the lower of the
two being a separate touchscreen just for
the audio system.
My tester was a Touring model, which in
Honda-speak is top of the line. That means
it had leather upholstery with a memoryenhanced 10-way powered driver’s seat,
memory-linked power-folding side mirrors
with integrated turn signals and reverse
tilt, a multi-information display, blind-spot
detection, the aforementioned vacuum on
the inside, and HID headlights to improve
forward vision. There’s a lot more I’m not
mentioning, but you get the gist.
Honda’s fully independent MacPherson
strut front and multi-link rear suspension
setup is plenty agile through fast corners
and solidly planted on the freeway. The
six-speed automatic shifts through its
cogs quickly, snapping from gear to gear
with nice positive engagement under
full throttle, yet when tooling around
town it goes about its business almost
imperceptibly, as it should.
Pricing for the 2014 Honda Odyssey starts
at $29,990 plus delivery fees, while my topline Odyssey Touring model was priced at
$46,490 plus destination charges. While
that might seem like a lot for a minivan
at first glance, it’s a small price to pay for
its full load of family-friendly features and
overall impressive capabilities.