Here’s a cool Honda Odyssey. I met it in the parking lot of a bank in Beijing’s Fengtai District. The MPV is in perfect time-capsule shape, painted white with slightly darkened windows and a matching roof box, and fitted with the original wheels.
Guangzhou-Honda
Honda launched the second-generation Honda Odyssey MPV in 1999. Production in China started in 2002 by the Guangzhou-Honda joint venture.
The car in the photos is an early joint venture car, so it has a mix of Chinese and Latin script on the car. Later, the Chinese government issued a directive directing the JVs to use Chinese script only, so Latin script largely disappeared—the characters write广州, Guǎngzhōu.
The joint venture still exists. Today, it is called GAC-Honda. It makes a wide range of ICE, PHEV, and EVs. The Odyssey is still around as well, now in its fifth generation.
Not a single bust or any dust on the entire car. The chrome bits are shiny as new.
The brilliant interior
The interior is a beautiful time capsule. These floral-pattern seat covers were popular at the time. You’d seen them in any high-end car, and in those days, a Honda MPV was high-end. The beige fabric seats look factory fresh!
The wood panels are amazingly well-maintained. The owner put in a lot of work cleaning and polishing this Honda. Well, it was worth it. Everything is original, even the radio-cassette-CD unit is still there. There’s more fabric on the doors, and the floor mats are original and Honda-branded. The gear lever is located at the bottom of the center stack, next to the cigarette lighter. The owner put a USB-connector there, the only nod to modernity.
The owner fitted sun visors at the rear, so not much to see here, but the seats in the back seem just as good as those up front.
Note the 1:43 scale model of a white Honda Odyssey at the armrest! The owner of this MPV must be a big Honda MPV fan. Such fans are relatively rare in comparison to, let’s say, fans of sports cars or wagons, but I am super happy some exist.
Specifications of the Honda Odyssey
The Odyssey badge. The Chinese name of the Odyssey is 奥德赛 (Àodésài). The China-spec engine was a 2.3-liter 16-valve VTEC multi-point EFI four-cylinder petrol unit with an output of 110 kW. Honda mated the motor to a four-speed automatic transmission and front-wheel drive. It had a 110 km/h top speed, and it did 0-100 in 13 seconds.
Honda aimed the seven-seat Odyssey at the Buick GL8, which was the most popular MPV in China. At the time, the main customers of MPVs were companies and government organizations. The private market was still in its infancy. In 2002, Honda priced the Odyssey at 298.000 yuan, nearly the same as the price of the Buick.
Chinese authorities issued the famous black license plates to foreign-owned companies from the 1980s to the mid-2000s. These companies could either buy a car locally or import one, with no restrictions on quantity, price, or engine type. The numbering started at 京A·00001 and increased sequentially, meaning lower numbers indicate older vehicles. This Honda has 京A·20692, so that’s a mid-age black-license plate car.
What a perfect Honda Odyssey. And what a coincidence. I was in the area for a tourism day trip to visit a famous old tower. It was still early in the morning. By sheer coincidence, I parked my car alongside the road – close to a bank. When I got out, I immediately noticed the Odyssey and ran to it. My day couldn’t have started any better.