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The Honda Odyssey. What a success story!

Only a two- to three-days supply of the vans in dealer stock nationwide and folks are standing in line to hand over a check for full sticker–and then some–to buy one.

Have to order? Be prepared to wait 60 days for the phone call to come pick it up.

Odyssey appeared in the 1995 model year, a rush-to-market machine with a van body fixed to an Accord platform. In 1999, given time to do it right, Odyssey adopted a new and larger platform.

In the first year on the market, sales totaled 26,000 units, but now Honda can’t build them fast enough. Sales topped 131,000 units in ’01, a 3.4 percent increase from ’00, yet still not enough for those who wanted one.

For the start of the ’02 model year, Honda has added a plant in Alabama to the one in Canada in producing Odyssey.

The Canadian plant produces Odyssey alongside the Acura MD-X and Honda Pilot sport-utility vehicles. Pilot ($25,000 to $30,000) is the lower-cost Honda version of the MD-X ($35,000 to $40,000) that goes on sale this summer as an ’03. MD-X and Pilot are based on the Odyssey platform, the reason all three can be built alongside each other.

But don’t get your hopes up that the second plant will relieve shortages. The Alabama plant has capacity for 150,000 vehicles annually, the Canadian plant capacity for 190,000. But eventually Alabama will build only Odyssey, Canada only MD-X and Pilot. So Odyssey’s net gain is very little.

But enough numbers.

We tested an ’02 Odyssey EX-L RES, a code that denotes it’s a top-of-the-line van (EX) with leather (L) and rear-seat entertainment system (RES) with DVD player and pop-down-from-the-roof viewing screen.

Had the test vehicle come with a navigation system rather than the rear-seat entertainment system, and you can get only one or the other, it would have been the Odyssey EX-L NAVI.

A DVD system will keep back-seat travelers content watching movies rather than keeping front-seat parents frustrated watching the rear-seat kids. NAVI will keep content only those who, even after getting their 30-year service pin, forget the way home at night. Skip NAVI, go RES.

For ’02, Honda offers a few new features for Odyssey, including the factory-installed DVD system; a bevy of cupholders (six just for the two front-seat passengers, and why one person needs six or two people need three each is a question that perhaps only the NAVI can answer); grocery-bag hooks on the backs of the rear seat; side air bags; front and rear disc brakes (front only in ’01); and a 3.5-liter, 240-horsepower V-6 with 5-speed automatic transmission to replace last year’s 3.5-liter, 210-h.p. V-6 with a 4-speed.

Plenty of power, especially needed when all seven seats and/or the cargo hold are full. If you need to carry more cargo than people, the third seat drops flat into a tub-shape holder in the rear floor.

Nice feature for hauling, but it also keeps Odyssey from realizing its full potential to be an all-wheel-drive minivan and not just a front-wheel-drive van. To make room for the AWD hardware, Honda says, you’d have to raise the floor by 2 inches, but if you raise the floor by 2 inches, you can’t fold the third seat flat into the tub in the floor.

So what if you want AWD for all-season motoring? Buy a Honda Pilot SUV, the automaker says.

Or an AWD Chevrolet Venture or Chrysler Town & Country minivan, the competition says.

And, as long as Venture and Town & Country have entered the conversation, might as well consider how the Odyssey matches up.

The Town & Country, and most any Chrysler minivan, has smoother ride with less up-and-down jitters on rough surfaces. Handling, however, is no better or worse than that of any of its rivals. When you take a long, wide machine into a corner at 60 m.p.h., the van body and your body are going to lean in accordance with the laws of pysics.
Odyssey, as noted, seats seven and lots of cargo, but having just taken a Pontiac Montana on a long trip loaded with family and gear, have to say Montana, cousin to the Venture, holds more than the Honda.

Like its rivals, Odyssey has power side doors to ease entry and exit in back. And with second-row bucket seats separated by a wide aisle, you have easy pass-through space to get into the third-row seat.

Unlike its rival Chrysler, however, Odyssey doesn’t have a power stop-and-retract hatch lid. With that option, the lid on a Chrysler van will stop and back up when striking an object in its path. With Odyssey, keep your head up and eyes open.

Chrysler and GM vans, as well as Ford, Toyota, etc., sit high to give the driver a commanding view of the road. Odyssey sits much lower, a Honda trait, probably by design to keep the center of gravity low for more sure-footed handling–though you still get lean in the corners.

To ensure good view, Odyssey’s front, side and rear glass is picture-window size and much bigger than that of its rivals. Nice for visibility year-round, but a styling feature that demands air conditioning set at “high” in the summer.

The test vehicle, as noted, came with optional leather seats. Even without leather, the seat side support bolsters are slim and do little to reduce your body lean in corners.

Nice features include huge outside mirrors, a lift-up tray between the center seat to serve as lunch/work table, and placement of the DVD player low in the dash, where it’s out of the way. (VHS entertainment systems in consoles between front or second row seats are always in the way.)

Base price is $29,750.

Standard equipment includes four-wheel anti-lock brakes, traction control, heated front seats, front- and rear-seat air conditioning, steering wheel audio controls, eight-way power driver’s seat, cruise control, remote keyless entry, adjustable steering column, power windows and door locks, power mirrors, 16-inch all-season radial tires, power sliding side doors, privacy glass and rear-window washer/wiper/ defroster.

If you pass on leather and settle for cloth, which would be wise, and give the kids coloring books instead of a DVD screen, the base price drops to $26,750.

Odyssey is a competent, but not spectacular, minivan loaded with creature comforts and novel features, such as the third seat that folds into a tub in the floor (which, if lined with plastic and filled with ice and pop, can turn the van into a 240-h.p. cooler).

Its attraction? The Honda nameplate. Honda cars are so well recognized for quality that all members of the family enjoy the same perception among the public.