Hassan Chop!
This is Honda’s new Odyssey Minivan show car set to debut at the Chicago Auto Show. Sadly, nobody told them we’re not doing Lambo doors any more.
Image source: [BrickellHonda.com]
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Let me get this straight: Honda has installed scissor doors for the front, but then decided a sliding door is a less complex solution for the rear?
Swing and a miss.
They had a chance to dodge the dreaded *minivan* label, and instead they reinforce the stereotype that, outside of the Accord, none of their stylists or customers have any design sense.
I find the Civic much more visually appealing than the Accord, but that's just me.
If they could make the minivan actually look like that, without a B-Pillar, I would put it on my list. I think it looks very snazzy.
It's a visual pun / reverse mullet. The front doors are Lambo-style, indicating that Honda is hip and sporty and loves what the kids do with fart cans and giant wings. The sliding rear doors remind us that we do now and then have to behave responsibly and bring our families along with us.
To be fair, what else has used front sliding doors besides the (admittedly bizarrely cool) Dodge Neon Concept?
<img src="http://www.weblogsinc.com/common/images/3060000000048248.JPG?0.4921523344709874" /img>
I was thinking more along the lines of the Chrysler Portofino, myself.
<img src="http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt237/jskitter/hooniverse/lamborghini_portofino_07.jpg" width="500">
Howard 'Dutch' Darrin patented sliding front/rear doors in 1949. He originally proposed them for the 1951 Kaiser, but Kaiser-Frazer rejected the layout for cost reasons. The short-lived 1954 Kaiser-Darrin had sliding (front) doors, though, as did the later BMW Z1 roadster.
Admittedly, the interest of the buying public in edge-testing minivan design is generally low, as witness the commercial failure of the previous Nissan Quest. And let's not even start on the Renault Avantime…
What about the Fiat Multipla?
That, too. The Multipla was at least a startingly practical design — everything that made it look weird was there for a functional reason — but it looked like a creature from Finding Nemo, and it took a brave buyer to look past the Bizarro World exterior.
This is all designed around parking spaces and being able to get in and out without a fuss. I understand the lambo doors up front because there's no place to put the slider's track. Works for me! (Though I'm sure the cost to build them this way would exceed a minivan's economic utility for me thus putting me on the wrong side of the supply/demand curve.)
Honda has lost their goddamn mind. Now I know why relationships fail over time. People change. Companies change. I can't wait to sell my Acura and get a Subaru.
That is all.
but ultimately your Scooby will change too.
/The only one who never changes is Porsche. 'Sept for that buyout/merger thing…
All hail the mostly constant 911!
I think that was shown in Tokyo earlier in the year, but the van to be shown in Chicago is likely to be a thinly disguised version of the coming all new 2011 Odyssey. That's the typical Honda way, they put new wheels & lights on the production design and call it a show car. Witness last year's CR-Z show car, the Pilot and Ridgeline were done the same way.
Does that mean it will suck the same way as the Pilot and the Ridgeline?
Funny story. I was asked to leave the Honda display at NAIAS a few years ago because I was pointing out all of the faults in the Ridgeline. Potential customers were listening to me, laughing at the product faults and leaving the display.
See, I actually like the function of it. Lambos will never need Lambo doors, they are valet parked. But a Minivan will be squeezed into the tiniest space. It will be entirely functional to have a lambo door (unless its a low roof). The sliding rear door and the lambo door should go hand in hand (except the lambo is unnecessarily expensive).
My thought process on those doors:
Soccer moms drive minivans. This means they have kids. These kids like to shop. In Northern VA everyone shops at a mall. These malls (lets say, Tyson's Corner mall) have parking garages. These parking garages have low ceilings. Those doors will never open. That means the kids run hellbent for leather across traffic to get into the mall while mom tries to do the limbo to get out of the car. One asswipe texting while driving hits a kid. Kid gets hurt. Bad.
Basically, Honda designed a deathmobile.
Did that make sense?
I'm not seeing a problem here.
And the gene pool gains a few points…
Your malls have parking garages? Strange. Still, It's not going to get to that point in the first place, because as can be seen this new Odyssey will have no door handles. Therefore, it won't be leaving the driveway in the first place because mom and her hellspawn won't be able to get into it.
It's Northern VA, all the malls in the more congested areas have them due to space limitations.
I didn't think of the handle-less doors. Good call.
what if it had gullwing doors instead of sliders and lambo doors?
Dammit, you beat me to it!!
Or another idea, just weld all the doors shut and remove the windows like the Duke Boys. Just slide acroos the hood and hop in! Sure would be a bitch to drive in the rain though.
BTW, surely I'm not the only one that ever wondered why it never rained in Hazzard County, and what Bo and Luke would do with The General if it did.
Play Nintendo? Consider the merit of "daisy dukes?"
So if Honda begins putting Lambo doors on their stock cars, will the ricers put regular doors on them?
I like this. Now the self-absorbed soccer mom yapping on her cell phone and her brats can't swing their appliance's doors into my car. The self-absorbed soccer mom probably thinks the scissor doors make her "cool" in her attempt to be her daughter's best friend instead of a parent, and my car remains ding-free for another day.
It's a win-win!
AGREED, SIR!
It's a promotional gimmick with zero chance of making it to production. but really, who would pay attention to a minivan at an auto show if it DIDN'T shoot lasers out of its ass?
Nobody drives a Honda Odyssey hard (so the body flex wouldn't matter) and I'm sure the doors would be very reinforced (so it'd do passably in crash tests).
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