(EXPANDED FROM 7/9/2018)
The headline may seem overly dramatic. After all, ugly car design doesn’t have nearly the negative consequences of, say, melting the polar ice caps. However, visual blight has been proven to increase the incidence of depression. That, in turn, reduces worker productivity, increases healthcare costs and makes life harder for TV comedy writers.
This is why, if we were charged with creating a new religion that addresses the key issues of modern life, the 2018-26 Honda Odyssey’s styling would be considered sinful. And not just minorly so. Honda’s fifth-generation minivan is so depressingly primordial that it may have increased the purely medical use of Desyrel, Khedezla and Lamictal by at least 14 percent over the last eight years.
That’s an outsized impact for one car, particularly when a minivan is typically so innocuous that it goes virtually unnoticed.
Odyssey joins ugly stick arms race
Of course, the Odyssey’s designers could argue that their handiwork is the moral equivalent of shooting a burglar in self defense. In recent years the American auto industry has been in an ugly stick arms race. Conventional wisdom holds that your vehicles won’t get noticed — and bought — unless you ruthlessly mix incongruous stylistic metaphors.
You can also see this trend in the Odyssey’s arch-rival, the Toyota Sienna. Over the years it has gradually shifted from a tastefully utilitarian look to a particularly ugly avatar of the sci-fi look (go here for further discussion).
From that perspective, you’ve got to give Honda at least some credit. The latest Odyssey is one huge step farther into the abyss than its predecessor. Whereas the 2014-17 models were merely quirky with their zig-zag belt lines, the 2018 design looks like it was designed in a bar near closing time.
The Odyssey’s character lines used to at least make logical sense. Now it is utter mayhem. Okay, so Japanese designers are infatuated with floating C-pillars. I’ll deal. But what’s going on with the side sheetmetal? Does this Odyssey suffer from a cancerous tumor on the sliding door? Does the character line droop from the window to the taillight because its odyssey is over?
One might assume that Honda would have realized that it made a huge mistake and quickly redesigned the Odyssey. Instead, the minivan is now in its eighth year of production with only minor changes — mainly a revised grille.
Fifth-generation Odyssey sales taper off
For much of the Odyssey’s life it has tended to outsell the Sienna, so the obvious question becomes: How well has the fifth-generation design done? The answer is mixed.
For its first three years Honda’s minivan outsold Toyota’s, but that may have partly been because of its newer sheetmetal. For 2021 the redesigned Sienna saw its sales edge past the Odyssey — which bottomed out at under 48,000 units in 2022. By 2025 Honda sales bounced back to more than 88,000 units. However, that was below the Toyota’s more than 101,000 units.
One might wonder whether ugly is more popular when it comes to minivans, but the somewhat more normal-looking Chrysler Pacifica has mostly outsold the Odyssey as well as the Sienna over the last eight years. So perhaps advanced civilization is not yet doomed.
As for the designers of the 2018-26 Odyssey, we can only hope that they will move heaven and earth to redeem themselves when the minivan is eventually redesigned — perhaps as soon as 2034.
NOTES:
Sales figures are from Wikipedia (see below).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Wikipedia; 2026. “Chrysler Pacifica.” Page last edited April 2.
- ——; 2026. “Honda Odyssey (North America).” Page last edited Jan. 31.
- ——; 2026. “Toyota Sienna.” Page last edited March 4.
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- 2018 Honda Odyssey: Photo by Kevauto via Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 international license.
- 20121 Toyota Sienna: Photo by Kevauto via Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 international license.
Most contemporary Japanese vehicles seem, to me at least, horribly overwrought. If it isn’t the Nazca lines of the Odyssey then it’s the snowplow grills of some Lexus vehicles. What about the new Toyota Bz EV and all that black fender trim? And, please, Mitsubishi, stop already!
Jeez Louise, Steve. Who can afford a new car / van / truck / tricked out minivan ? The whole economy in the U.S. is cratering. Maybe the world in Olympia is all sunshine, lollipops and roses, but not in in the Midwest. Sales numbers right now are largely irrelevant with a war of choice.
I just looked at some US vehicle sales data for March 2026 which show an 11.8% decline year over year. S&P Global Mobility sites only a 3% decline in annual sales volume, 2026 vs 2025. Will new vehicle sales crater in April? Will buyers be forced to pay premiums for previously-owned vehicles, regardless of how they look?
Also, the black or silver ones look like hearses.
The 2027 Kia Telluride SX Prestige has entered the discussion saying, “Hold my beer!”
I have commented before on the ugly wave that has washed over the primarily Asian brands. I have also chalked that up to the lack of ”heritage’ that they have and how that disease has also taken over Lincoln as of late’ despite their century old ”heritage”.
The good news is the awareness that ugly cars create depression – so we can all just look away when we see something horrible approaching. The other is the news of the Chrysler Pacifica’s success giving that proud old company a much needed lifeline.
Someone else said it first, but the Honda looks like the crinkled up box it came in.