2009 Honda Odyssey

A major upgrade of Honda's Odyssey was revealed last week, ahead of the international launch in November. The new vehicle, which is most likely to be introduced here during the second quarter of next year is based on the same platform as the current car, but has been completely restyled, inside and out.

National Public Relations Manager for Honda Australia Mark Higgins informed the Carsales Network that as yet, the new Odyssey is not on the radar for Australia. By that, he meant the company's PR efforts are currently focused on the Indy Car race in Queensland and the City light car. Work on the Odyssey will commence after the PR team has cleared the decks of those two tasks. He did however say that he was expecting the new Odyssey to launch here during the second quarter of next year.

"It will be either very late first quarter '09 or more than likely second quarter '09 [before] we'll have it here," Higgins said.

We would expect the car to be previewed at next year's Melbourne International Motor Show ahead of the vehicle's launch.

Popular automotive website Autoblog.com reports that the Odyssey will remain powered by a 2.4-litre four-cylinder powerplant, but the output will be raised to 171hp -- a figure that converts to 127kW, which is a nine kilowatt improvement on the current car's peak power.

Higgins admits that the power upgrade is on the cards, since Hondas generally do gain power from one generation to the next and the engine powering the Odyssey is of the same family as the engines in the CR-V, Accord 2.4 and Accord Euro -- all of which have seen power increases with new models recently launched.

"[As] It's part of that 2.4-litre engine family, I would imagine there could well be power up, but I haven't seen any figures at this stage," says Higgins.

Higgins also said that it was too soon to discuss which way pricing might head for the new car.

"Everything's a bit up in the air at the moment, as far as pricing's concerned -- and of greater concern to the importers obviously is the Australian dollar, exchange rates, etc," he said.

"Come second quarter of next year, I'd love to be able to say things have quietened down a bit and it'll be back on an even keel. With the volatility of the market these days, who knows what's going to happen and where we're going to be."

Honda has priced the Odyssey at a premium over competitors in the past, but based on the Accord Euro precedent, don't be surprised if Honda find some way of reducing the price for the new model.

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