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 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 increase the purely medical use of Desyrel, Khedezla and Lamictal by at least 14 percent in the coming year.
That’s an outsized impact for one car, particularly when a minivan is typically so innocuous that it goes virtually unnoticed.
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.
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?
If so that’s sad, but please get on with it. Take this tortured soul off the road before it convinces American motorists that advanced civilization is irredeemably doomed.
As for the people who approved this beast, let’s just say that karma can be problematic at times.
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RE:SOURCES
- Wikipedia; 2018. “Honda Odyssey (North America).” Accessed July 15.
- Author’s photo gallery: “Designed by space aliens?”
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