Honda’s material choices and cabin details for the Odyssey have moved decidedly upscale – pretty much anywhere your hand falls is soft-touch, there’s ambient lighting for the footwells, the door handles and the instrument bin, some nice stitching on the dash and the simplified two-tone interior just looks great.

My Touring trim van had handsome two-tone 19-inch rims with 235/55-sized tires. The head lights, driving and foglights are all LED and the new LED “bracket” tail light signature is very cool. Also, my opinion is that the whole side of the vehicle looks a bit overdone – was there some sort of body crease contest I missed out on? It now looks like there’s a floating roof in the rear pillar area (that’s just a visual trick of course) and the rear sliding door tracks are masterfully hidden under the rear glass. The exterior styling is evolutionary, and I guess we didn’t make a big enough deal about disliking that weird kink in the side window trim line – it’s still there. Honda’s all-new 2018 Odyssey is a fine example – they took something that was already great and improved it on many levels. The minivan market continues to shrink as our tastes shift to less-practical crossovers and SUVs, but manufacturers are not sitting back when it comes to making awesome new vans. New features, new infotainment, more upscale.

2018 honda odyssey touring