[BigBoat]

Honda Odyssey Selected as 2011 AUTOMOBILE Magazine "All-Star"

TORRANCE, Calif. - AUTOMOBILE Magazine has named the 2011 Honda Odyssey as one of the winners of its prestigious 2011 AUTOMOBILE Magazine "All-Star" awards, the publication announced today.

The Odyssey has won the All-Star award a total of eight times in its history, winning votes from the magazine’s editorial staff for the vehicle’s versatile and comfortable interior, refined handling dynamics, family friendly features and fuel economy.

"The all-new Odyssey represents the latest and best thinking that Honda has to offer in a minivan" said John Mendel, executive vice president of sales for American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "The recognition from AUTOMOBILE Magazine as an All Star is an honor made possible by the hard work and passion that Honda associates have put into the design and construction of the vehicle"

The completely redesigned Odyssey improves for 2011 with greater interior functionality, a more distinctive style and higher fuel economy. Significant enhancements to the interior include a new "3-mode" second-row seat design that is more comfortable for center passengers (Odyssey EX and above). A more powerful and efficient 3.5-liter i-VTEC V-6 engine features Variable Cylinder Management (standard on all models for 2011) and produces 248 hp while delivering an EPA-estimated1 city/highway/combined fuel economy of up to 19/28/22 mpg on Odyssey Touring models.

New technology available on certain models includes a rear entertainment system with a 16.2-inch ultrawide split-screen display and an auxiliary High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) video input, an "intelligent" Multi-Information Display (i-MID) with customizable wallpaper, integration of FM traffic data on navigation models and much more.

The 2011 Odyssey is truly an American-made vehicle, designed, engineered and assembled in the United States. The Odyssey is produced exclusively at Honda Manufacturing of Alabama (HMA) using domestic and globally sourced parts. The Odyssey previously won the AUTOMOBILE Magazine All-Star Award in 1995, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Automobile Magazine, WebWire

 

[BigBoat]

Kelley Blue Book's kbb.com Names Honda Odyssey '2011 Best Redesigned Vehicle'

IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 16, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Kelley Blue Book www.kbb.com, the leading provider of new car and used car information, today announces the 2011 Honda Odyssey has been named 2011 Best Redesigned Vehicle. The kbb.com editors praise the 2011 Honda Odyssey engineers and designers for successfully tackling the difficult task of improving and redesigning an already very-successful, hot-selling model that is widely regarded as the pinnacle of its class.
"The 2011 Honda Odyssey improves on its predecessor in every way imaginable, offering a better-looking, more contemporary exterior design, a sumptuous interior stuffed with innovative features, and class-leading fuel economy, " said Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book's kbb.com. "Its safety, refinement, resale value and trouble-free nature are combined with a surprising level of fun-to-drive, so it is not difficult to see why Honda refers to the 2011 Odyssey as the 'ultimate in family transportation.'"
The Best Redesigned Vehicle accolade honors the vehicle that best demonstrates improvement and superiority relative to its predecessor and competitors. In judging, the kbb.com editors consider exterior and interior styling, technology, comfort and convenience features, performance/capability, driving dynamics, safety, fuel economy, overall refinement and, of course, value.
Few products reflect the accelerating pace of change more than the automobile. Whereas many of yesterday's new models were not much more than styling updates, today's redesigns are more often leaps and bounds ahead of their predecessors in every way. Accordingly, it takes an exceptional product to be named Kelley Blue Book's Best Redesigned Vehicle.
A variety of new or improved design innovations contributed to the 2011 Honda Odyssey capturing the Best Redesigned Vehicle honors from the kbb.com editors this year. Its lower roofline and improved aerodynamics are keys to the 2011 Odyssey's class-leading highway fuel economy, while the wider stance not only enhances its exterior appearance, but also translates into significantly more useable interior space. The Odyssey's innovative features are legend, and this time the split third-row Magic Seat is joined by a three-mode second row that greatly improves passenger comfort.
Not only is the Odyssey equipped with a robust array of active and passive safety features, but it also has a total of five LATCH child-seat attachment points, the most on any currently available vehicle. The kids also will appreciate the available rear entertainment system with a 16.2-inch ultra-wide split-screen display with HDMI video input. Other added features include the available 'cool box,' front bag hook and flip-up trash bag ring, all of which illustrate the fact that Honda designers thought long and hard about users' needs as they conceived the new vehicle.
Dozens of vehicles were redesigned for the 2011 model-year. In addition to the award-winning 2011 Honda Odyssey, rounding out the top 10 finalists for kbb.com's 2011 Best Redesigned Vehicle were (in alphabetical order) the BMW X3, Ford Explorer, Hyundai Sonata, Infiniti M, Jaguar XJ, Kia Optima, Porsche Cayenne, Toyota Sienna and Volvo S60.

kbb.com, prnews

 

[BigBoat]

A Van Parents Will Love—If They Don't Look at It


Notwithstanding a few oldsters sitting in fertility clinics with their young wives, baby boomers are pretty much done with reproduction. Theirs has been an uneven record of child-rearing.

The good news is that their children—the cohorts of Gen X and Gen Y—show signs of wanting to be better parents than the egocentric wretches who raised them. Call the phenomenon Latchkey Rebound. According to a Honda-commissioned research by Yankelovich, 89% of Gen Y parents surveyed said they "make sure our family spends time together each day," as compared with 62% of boomer respondents.

Fifty-nine percent of Gen X respondents said they "try to spend one-on-one time with kids every day," as compared with a rather pathetic 34% of boomers.

Honda's needle-watchers also point to a slight uptick in the number of families with three or more children; and evidence that X and Y dads want to be more involved, with nearly half spending six or more hours per week "parenting," whatever that is. One might be tempted to invoke the fraught "traditional family values" phrase, except that there's nothing traditional about it. Fatherhood in the '50s and '60s was much like an air-to-air missile. It was fire and forget.

Today's highly motivated nurturers are the target audience for the 2011 Honda Odyssey minivan, which Honda expects will—in its general, rounded excellence—help ease any self-consciousness about driving a minivan, per se.

Dan Neil reviews Honda's 2011 Odyssey Touring Elite mini-van and why he thinks its not only the best mini-van on the market but possibly the best vehicle that Honda makes.

I think we all know what the stigma here is: To be seen driving a minivan is to admit to a kind of shameful domesticity, an existence of postsexual nullity and a state of parental slavery, ever orbiting from school, to grocery store, to ballet lessons, to games, like some suburban Flying Dutchman.

However, as the father of twin 3-year-olds, I have never suffered from minivan embarrassment. After all, nothing says "stud" quite like a minivan. Through the lens of evolutionary biology, females look at men driving minivans as far more likely to continue their genetic coding, to invest in their offspring, than some dork in a Lamborghini. Yes, indeed, the lure of a minivan is primal.

Be that as it may, Honda felt it necessary to tart up the Odyssey for model year 2011, to give it, in the company's phrase, a "chic new style."

The exterior styling is a sweet hot cubist mess.

This effort was a dismal failure. There's the very odd down-jog in the side windows at the "C" pillar—Honda dubs this element a "lightning-bolt beltline" by way of selling its awesomeness. And then there's the strangely grafted-on look of the side doors, as if the whole affair had been lifted from the back of a coroner's refrigerated truck.

Otherwise, the Odyssey is pretty great, the best minivan on the market. Arguably, in terms of fulfillment of expectation, this might be the best vehicle Honda makes. New for 2011 is a top-of-the-line Touring "Elite" package ($44,030, delivered) that includes a megawatt 12-speaker stereo system and an ultra-wide-screen video player, among a slew of electronic amenities. Navigation-equipped models have a 15GB hard drive for song storage and multiview rear camera. Order this thing in Crystal Black Pearl with black hides and you've created something the world has never actually seen: an executive minivan.

The Odyssey has the best acceleration in its class and shortest stopping distance, according to company testing.

At this point, I should probably recuse myself. I own an '08 Odyssey Touring, which the kids and wife love. I must say, though, I've been disappointed with the White Whale's fuel economy, which hovers around 18 mpg in mixed driving. Honda reports the new Odyssey Touring gets 19/28 mpg, city/highway, which is 2/3 mpg better than the previous model, while horsepower (248) and torque (250 pound-feet) are both up slightly. The fuel-economy measures include revised accessory drive systems (things like a variable-displacement power-steering pump); reduced internal engine friction; cold-air engine intake; better aero efficiency; and low-rolling-resistance tires. Touring models get a new six-speed transmission. Honda also managed to whittle 103 pounds off the Odyssey, even though it is appreciably wider (by 2 inches) and longer than before.

Indeed, the product-development guys seemed to have gotten a peek at my gripe list for the Odyssey. I've frequently wished the thing was a little bit quieter and easier to converse in. Accordingly, the new Odyssey (Touring and Touring Elite) comes equipped with acoustic front glass and is generally better sealed and silenced than before.

There was certainly never a shortage of storage compartments or cupholders in the Odyssey.

I've never been much enamored of my car's second-row center seat, which is too narrow for an adult to sit in but didn't have latches for a car seat. Voilà. Honda has increased the middle-second-row seat width by 4 inches, and now the seat slides forward 5½ inches, which means anyone in the navigator position (front passenger) can reach a child in the middle car seat. Also, the second row has a "wide mode" that spaces the seats out for 3 more inches of hip room. Leg room in the third row has also been increased. The Odyssey is the only minivan you could take five adult friends out to dinner in, and have them remain your friends.

The sliding-door latches on my Odyssey take a serious, adult-size tug to open—indeed, they seem to be getting stiffer as the years go by. The new Odyssey's door-pull pressure is half that of the previous model. Now the kids can open the door themselves. It's a small thing until you're staggering out to the car with arms full of dry cleaning.

Yet another nice feature: The "cool box" drink-storage compartment under the central console runs off the A/C's heat exchanger, independent of cabin temperature setting.

There was certainly never a shortage of storage compartments or cupholders in the Odyssey, and there still isn't. The Odyssey has 11 cupholders and four large bottle holders, for the hockey team with a drinking problem, I suppose.

In most other respects, the Odyssey's improvements are incremental and evolutionary—which isn't to say they were easy to achieve. The handling, steering and braking partake of current Hondas' keen suppleness and great feel. The Odyssey has the best acceleration in its class (8.8 seconds to 60 mph) and shortest stopping distance, according to company testing. In a short driving loop around the Hudson Valley, the Odyssey I drove felt familiarly agile and confident on country lanes. Nicely done, Honda.

So the exterior styling is a sweet hot cubist mess. Evaluating a minivan on looks is like ranking Nascar drivers on their knowledge of Chaucer. The Odyssey makes parenting better, and better parents will want one.


The Wall Street Journal Online (Cars)

 

[BigBoat]

Edmunds Inside Line. 2011 Toyota Sienna vs. 2011 Honda Odyssey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40xzgubEUQg

Personally I believe the Sienna exterior design is much sleeker but since it is a relative thing I guess there was no point of including it in the review.

We test drove both, the Sienna exterior and acceleration won me but the Odyssey interior and features won my wife

 

[manualman]

Love the WSJ review. Fun style. But even as a GenXer, I get tired of the whiny Boomer bashing. Move on. I CAN relate to his confusion over people who'd rather be caught dead than in a minivan. Nothing comes close to as practical as the maxivan!

 

[BigBoat]

Love the WSJ review

If you have to a couple of minutes to kill check out the actual video interview. I had a good crack at it (the guy tested a $2.8M Bugatti Veyron the week before):

http://online.wsj.com/video/news-hub-honda-elite-mini-van/EF790484-389E-4C1F-BE08-0710FF2A7FE5.html

Note: use your headset if at work, nothing offending but just in case.

 

[whoa]

If you have to a couple of minutes to kill check out the actual video interview. I had a good crack at it (the guy tested a $2.8M Bugatti Veyron the week before):

http://online.wsj.com/video/news-hub-honda-elite-mini-van/EF790484-389E-4C1F-BE08-0710FF2A7FE5.html

Note: use your headset if at work, nothing offending but just in case.

I think the interviewee was inferring that minivan owners have more sex than those who are not lol.

 

[Snobike Mike]

The (chrysler) minvans should be helped by missteps by two of their major competitors, said Jake Fisher, an auto engineer with Consumer Reports magazine.

"The Toyota Sienna and the Honda Odyssey both got redesigned and they got worse," he said.

 

[MFLetou]

I guess they are getting ready to do a hit on the Odyssey, too. The one on the Sienna was scathing. I didn't agree with some of it. The problem is, the CR system inherently rewards the status quo--once they assign a rating, that's it--the old Sienna got a 93, so its a 93. Toyota could keep that vehicle exactly the same for a decade, and in 2016 be selling the same van and according to CR, it would still be a 93.

There is no accounting for technology updates, a more modern dash, etc.

This comment is kind of silly though, because they gave the last Chrylser vans scores in the 60s...even if they are a LOT better---are they really going to pass the Sienna's 80 or whatever the Odyssey ends up at? And with their reliabilitly ratings, CR will never recommend them anyway (unless they actually do improve, but it would have to be by leaps and bounds because the ratings on those vans are not just bad, they're epically awful.)

 

[BigBoat]

Without reading the whole CR review let's assume that it is a fair assessment: Exterior design, perhaps, but as per the interior design, damn, they have a lot of marketing work to do to compare apples to apples. Adding just more chrome does not make it more functional, so if you want a Chrysler/Dodge minivan decent interior, go for a 2010 Routan

 

[BigBoat]

Honda Canada commercial (via YouTube)

It seems that the tune is the most attractive part of this commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT4VLPBH1hY

 

[Snobike Mike]

This one has some weird conclusions......

http://www.thetorquereport.com/2010/12/what_were_the_top-10_worst_han.html

 

[BigBoat]

This one has some weird conclusions......

http://www.thetorquereport.com/2010/12/what_were_the_top-10_worst_han.html

0.4sec more! I knew handling was better on the Tourings, what I'm going to tell wife now?


The Odyssey EX-L is fitted with a five-speed automatic transmission and 17-inch wheels instead of the Touring’s six-speed and 18-inch rolling stock, which should largely account for the four-tenths difference in handling performance between the two variants of Honda’s minivan.

http://wot.motortrend.com/10-worst-handling-cars-tested-2010-20318.html

 

[BigBoat]

Mocked as Uncool, the Minivan Rises Again


DETROIT — Could driving a minivan, the ultimate embodiment of the suburban family vehicle, ever be considered cool?

The automakers are trying mightily to persuade us.

In marketing campaigns featuring heavy-metal theme songs, rapping parents, secret agents in cat masks, pyrotechnics and even Godzilla, minivan makers are trying to recast the much-ridiculed mom-mobile as something that parents can be proud — or at least unashamed — of driving.

Toyota led the effort early last spring with a campaign for its Sienna model that features a self-indulgent couple rapping about rolling through the cul-de-sacs with their posse of kids in their “Swagger Wagon.”

“The stories we heard were, ‘I just don’t want to be seen in a minivan. I don’t like being the soccer-mom joke or feeling like I’ve given up all trace of my identity to be a parent,’ ” said Richard Bame, Toyota’s national marketing manager for trucks and minivans.

Other automakers have jumped on the theme, too. For example, in a series of ads that began this fall, Honda claims its 2011 Odyssey “beckons like no van before.” One spot deploys a song by the metal rockers Judas Priest to awe a grocery-toting father with the van’s capabilities. In another, a couple seeking a romantic night out finds an Odyssey with rose petals spilling out of the sliding doors, chocolate-covered strawberries in a cooler compartment and a fire crackling on the rear-seat video screen.

Chrysler, which invented minivans in 1983, plans to offer a high-powered version of its 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan, aimed at fathers, which it has nicknamed the “man van.”

And Ford Motor, which stopped making minivans in 2006, is jumping back into the game with the diminutive C-Max. The seven-passenger vehicle is about two feet shorter than the Odyssey and Sienna and offers high-tech features like sensors that allow drivers to open the rear liftgate simply by waving a leg under the bumper.

Ford calls the C-Max a compact “people mover” and hopes its European design will make the vehicle practical for families without the unflattering “minivan” label. “Many are hard pressed to notice it has sliding doors. That wasn’t by accident,” said a Ford spokesman, Said Deep.

Having spent recent years making minivans more child-friendly through amenities like dual-screen entertainment systems and reconfigurable seating, the automakers are now focused on making them more appealing to adults, especially men, who have shied away from the vehicles and their connotations. Nearly every minivan sold in the United States has been redesigned in 2010 to offer flashier looks, more advanced technology and a sportier ride.

Making a minivan seem hip might be a stretch, but the new marketing efforts seem to be paying dividends, although the vehicles remain a small niche of the auto market.

The Toyota Sienna spots have become a Web sensation. The original ad drew more than 7.8 million views on YouTube, and the term “swagger wagon” — coined by the actor playing the father, Brian Huskey — has been adopted by some parents as a generic term for minivans.

Analysts credit the Toyota campaign with helping to increase sales of the Sienna by 18.5 percent through November — double the industry average for minivans and a rare bright spot for Toyota, whose overall sales have been flat since bad publicity over product recalls.

Sales of the Honda Odyssey are up 42 percent since October, when the 2011 model and new ad campaigns were introduced.

Colin McGraw, who has three young daughters and is expecting a fourth child in March, bought a 2011 Odyssey after discovering that most crossovers, which provide the capacity of a sport utility vehicle or minivan but are generally smaller and have four hinged doors, offered less cargo space and lower fuel economy.

“Minivans just make more sense for families,” said Mr. McGraw, a software consultant in Castle Rock, Colo. “They’re easier to get kids in and out of.”

At the Weymouth Honda dealership near Boston, the general manager, Jason Tobias, said the new Odyssey, with a bold new exterior that has been described as ugly in some reviews, has been gaining fans rapidly. Each one arrives on the lot already sold, and there is a waiting list for the top-end Touring Elite trim level, which sells for more than $40,000.

“With the new design, I think that it’s changed a lot of people’s opinions,” Mr. Tobias said. “So many people used to say, ‘I’ll never drive a minivan,’ and then, guess what? It’s called children.”

Chrysler just started shipping the updated versions of the Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan to dealers last month, but their sales rose even before that as Chrysler ramped up its advertising. One of the seemingly nonsensical — and certainly nontraditional — commercials showed suit-clad adults donning cat and mouse masks to prepare for a gang-style fight.

Minivans have a long way to go before coming even close to regaining the popularity they enjoyed a decade ago. They account for just 4 percent of all new-vehicle sales in the United States, compared with 20 percent for crossovers, according to Autodata, which tracks industry sales.

Automakers were on pace to sell about 450,000 minivans last year, a 9.3 percent increase from 2009 but far below the peak of 1.37 million in 2000. And the growth in minivan sales trails the overall domestic auto industry, which grew 11.1 percent through November.

Jack Nerad, editorial director at the Kelley Blue Book, which provides information about vehicles to consumers, said he thought the minivan segment was no longer shrinking. But whether it can grow again depends on how much the automakers can shed the stigma of vans.

“I don’t think anybody can dispute the functionality of a minivan for a family,” he said. “They’re not going to blow you away the way a coupe would, but in terms of what they do, they’re pretty amazing.”

But Chris Cedergren, a partner with Iceology, an automotive marketing consultancy in Los Angeles, said the vehicle would remain a tough sell to shoppers, no matter how well it might suit their needs, because of the image problem.

“Minivans quickly became appliances, and no one wants a white washing machine or a white refrigerator,” he said. “They want something they feel proud of driving, and they don’t want to be embarrassed.”

That’s why Kristen Howerton, a marriage and family therapist in Costa Mesa, Calif., never wanted to own a minivan. She disliked them so much that she titled her popular parenting blog “Rage Against the Minivan.”

“It’s just a symbol of women becoming the invisible, exchangeable mom — the soccer mom — where we all look the same and no longer have a sense of what’s cool,” Mrs. Howerton said.

But last year, she and her husband found that going anywhere with four young children, including two they adopted, had become impossible. Many of her readers suggested the unthinkable.

After searching desperately for an alternative, Mrs. Howerton gave in and bought a Toyota Sienna. “As much as I was opposed to it initially, it really has made life easier,” she said. “Mobility is more important than any standards I’m trying to uphold in my mind.”

The New York Times

 

[MFLetou]

Very nice honor for the Odyssey--2011 Edmund's Editor's Most Wanted.

Only 6 vehicles won this award, and it is open not just to new or redesigned vehicles but to all. Simply the best vehicles that Edmund's editors have driven.

http://www.insideline.com/features/inside-line-editors-most-wanted-awards.html

 

[BigBoat]

Motortrend's Minivan Rematch: 2011 Honda Odyssey vs. 2011 Toyota Sienna

I'm a minivan guy. I don't own one and I don't want one, but in my prior career I helped design Chrysler's second-gen minivan, and that exercise involved a whole lot of benchmarking and voice-of-the-customer research. That experience sticks with me when I do minivan comparisons like the one we ran last December, and I still stand by our finishing order. But because this was one of those rare holiday seasons that had the families from both sides of our household visiting over two weeks, I reckoned a real-world rematch of the top-finishing Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna might be in order.

The Odyssey arrived first for the Markus family visit: seven butts in eight seats for a trip north to Frankenmuth -- Michigan's little Bavaria -- plus assorted running around. Then we swapped it for the Sienna during the Smith family visit (six occupants total) and for a New Year's road trip to the Big Apple with four onboard. Our Odyssey was the range-topping $44,030 Touring Elite, boasting a six-speed automatic (December's EX-L had the five-speed). And in place of the "swagger-wagon" SE trim we last sampled, Toyota sent an upper-middle-class XLE, replete with the $6225 Premium Package of goodies like rear-seat entertainment, nav, park assist, Bluetooth, etc. The total: $40,642.

Our December comparo gave Toyota a slight edge in seating flexibility, owing to the fact that the middle row sacrificed very little eighth-passenger comfort while permitting the center seat section to be removed and stowed flush with the side panel in the left rear cargo area. This leaves captain's chairs with a longer range of fore-aft travel than Honda's, allowing passengers to really stretch their legs when only four are onboard, or scoot forward to share the ample legroom with the third row. But our real-world users found the Toyota's seats way harder to move when accessing the third row. The seat cushions fold up so the seat can stow right up against the front seats for wider access and to carry larger cargo, but sliding the seats forward -- especially the left (60-percent) side -- proved especially difficult. When sliding them back, the user had to be careful to stop and latch the heavy seat before crushing the knees of the third-row folks.

Parents of little kids should either plan on always doing this yourself, or letting the kids scramble over or between the middle row seats. The Honda's release mechanism challenged the Mark II, but once the latches were mastered, the seats themselves move more easily and the track stops them before knees are imperiled. Neither van's seats remember the original backrest angle or seat track position when they're moved. With two seniors and a teen sitting across the Honda's middle row, the wide-mode option afforded better hip and shoulder room by repositioning the main left and right chairs 1.5 inches outboard

Other observations: The Smiths got to ride in both vans and unanimously proclaimed the Honda the smoother riding of the two. The Toyota's rear-view camera seems to produce a better picture, and the proximity lines bend with the steering wheel, unlike Honda's. Both offer two viewing angles, extra-wide or normal on the Sienna, normal and overhead (for aligning trailer hitches) on the Odyssey. Toyota provides a sunglasses holder that also houses a convex mirror to allow both front seat occupants to keep tabs on all rear-seat riders. Honda's nav system was simpler to use and allows programming on the fly. Many navigation options are disallowed when the Toyota is in motion.

Toyota provides a handy cargo net that reaches almost up to the window, preventing potentially catastrophic luggage avalanches when the rear hatch is opened after the tall pile of luggage has shifted. All vans should have this. Fuel economy can't be directly compared, because the drives and loading were quite different, but for the record, the Honda managed 19.7 mpg over 600 miles carrying seven people and their luggage (the computer indicated 20.4 overall, and peaked at 24 during the long freeway slog). Our Toyota averaged 20.6 with only four people onboard for the longer 1250-mile trip (its trip computer was reporting 20.8 mpg). Both offer ECO lights, and I was amused to find that the Toyota's illuminated even when traveling with the flow of Michigan traffic at 10 over the posted 70-mph limit.

A good son/brother/uncle never assesses the limit handling of a van loaded with relatives, so I'll let our earlier findings stand on that front, but the Honda does have a slightly more planted feel on the highway. Both are very easy to drive smoothly, which is probably more germane anyway. The bottom line: The civilians preferred the Honda. I'm still shocked and a little horrified at the Odyssey's mid-forties price tag, and disappointed that its six-speed can't be had for less than $41K. I'd choose the Honda based on ease of seating use alone if I were mostly hauling kids under age 10; but opt for Toyota's swaggering SE if the kids proved in the showroom they could work the seats without killing each other.

MotorTrend

 

[BigBoat]

Honda Odyssey: 2011 North American Truck Of The Year Semi-Finalist?

DETROIT — The 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2011 Ford Explorer were named the 2011 North American Car and Truck of the Year on Monday at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show.

The Volt, a series plug-in hybrid, beat the all-electric 2011 Nissan Leaf and the 2011 Hyundai Sonata, which is available with a hybrid powertrain. The Explorer, a crossover which is based on a car platform, trounced the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Dodge Durango, which fall into the category of traditional SUVs.

It is the second year in a row that Detroit products have dominated the prestigious competition. The Ford Fusion won North American Car of the Year honors in 2010, while the Ford Transit Connect was selected as 2010 Truck of the Year.

The 2011 car semi-finalists included the Audi A8, Buick Regal, Chevrolet Cruze, Chevrolet Volt, Ford Fiesta, Hyundai Sonata/2.0T/Hybrid, Infiniti M37/56, Jaguar XJ, Kia Optima, Mazda 2, Nissan Juke, Nissan Leaf, Volkswagen Jetta and Volvo S60.

The 2011 truck semi-finalists were the Dodge Durango, Ford Edge, Ford Explorer, Honda Odyssey, Hyundai Tucson, Infiniti QX56, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Kia Sorento, Kia Sportage, Lincoln MKX, Mercedes-Benz R-Class, Porsche Cayenne, Toyota Sienna and Volkswagen Touareg.

The North American Car and Truck of the Year jury is made up of 49 auto journalists from the U.S. and Canada.


InsideLine

 

[BigBoat]

Truck?

I would have been even more amused if it would have won

 

[BigBoat]

Top ten most and least expensive cars to insure in 2011

With the calendar year changing from 2010 to 2011, insurance adjusters have recompiled their actuarial tables and that means a new list of the cheapest and most expensive vehicles to insure for the new year. In this case, Insure.com recently conducted a survey of the nations six top insurance carriers and complied a list of 40 vehicles that take top honors in each category.

The study goes past the specific model and narrows down vehicles by trim. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the least expensive vehicles are dominated by minivans, while the most expensive list is filled with high-powered German machines. We cut down the list of 40 to show you the top 10 from each side of the fence and included the average annual premium for each vehicle after the jump.

Top 10 Least Expensive to Insure:
10. Toyota Highlander ($1,154.02)
9. Ford Escape ($1,150.26)
8. Toyota Sienna ($1,142.94)
7. Honda Odyssey EX ($1,138.16)
6. Jeep Wrangler ($1,131.27)
5. Nissan Murano ($1,127.84)
4. Honda Odyssey LX ($1,114.62)
3. Toyota Sienna LE ($1,107.70)
2. Toyota Sienna ($1,100.66)
1. Chrysler Town & Country LX ($1,091.80)

Top 10 Most Expensive to Insure:
10. Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG ($3,086.49)
9. Aston Martin DB9 Volante ($3,088.96
8. Porsche 911 Carrera S ($3,092.31)
7. Mercedes-Benz CL600 ($3,114.28)
6. Aston Martin DB9 ($3,120.45)
5. Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG ($3,220.86)
4. Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG ($3,263.46)
3. BMW 750Li ($3,280.70)
2. BMW 750i ($3,280.70)
1. Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG ($3,543.81)


AutoBlog

 

[MFLetou]

I was pretty shocked when I went to insure my 2011, and it was $50 cheaper per 6 months than the rate I was currently paying on my 2007!