Automobile Magazine has Dubbed the 2012 Honda Odyssey an "All-Star" Once Again

The annual Automobile Magazine All-Stars are often picked from the upper echelons of the industry, with this year’s team including cars like the Audi TT RS, Ferrari 458 Italia and Spyder, and Porsche Boxster and Cayman—and the 2012 Honda Odyssey. And not only is the Odyssey the only minivan on the All-Star team, but it’s now made the squad two years in a row.

Plenty of credit goes to the Odyssey’s interior, which is versatile enough to hold up to eight passengers or multiple 4’ x 8’ pieces of plywood. In addition, as Automobile Magazine’s Phil Floraday points out, the 2012 Odyssey also “raises the standard” for rear-seat entertainment system. The range-topping Odyssey Touring Elite boasts an integrated setup with a 16.2-inch LCD monitor that can display output from two different sources on the same split screen, along with a 12-speaker, 650-watt audio system with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound.

“However, what really makes the Honda Odyssey stand out from the rest of the minivan segment is how well it drives while executing the usual chores,” according to Floraday. “Steering weight and feel are about as good as it gets for a van, as are ride and handling. Honda’s Variable Cylinder Management system enables the 3.5-liter V6 to run on as few as three cylinders, resulting in an EPA rating of up to 28 mpg on the highway.”

That’s best-in-class highway fuel economy that is a full 4 mpg higher than in the four-cylinder rival from Toyota. Also best-in-class are the Odyssey’s safety ratings, as it was the first—and remains the only—minivan to achieve both a 5-Star Overall Vehicle Score from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Top Safety Pick status from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

“One of our drivers called our Four Seasons Odyssey ‘the best family road-trip vehicle’ in the fleet, but that’s just one of the many hats this Honda can wear, including cargo van, soccer shuttle, pulse accelerator, and sensible commuter,” wrote Floraday. “Capability, capacity, comfort, and efficiency in the same package? An All-Star, indeed.”

 

**  Courtesy of Honda in the News