While Chevrolet has a well-rounded set of popular cars, Ford excels at pickup trucks, and BMW competes in the luxury car market, Honda’s best-selling niche seems to be in the family vehicle market.  Some of their most popular cars in recent years have been family-oriented: the Honda Accord, the Honda Civic, and the Honda CR-V.

The Honda Accord has been around for three decades and shows no signs of fading into oblivion anytime soon.  The Honda Accord has a solid reputation for comfort, reliability, safety, and a good resale value.  Roomy, comfortable, and easy to drive, the Honda Accord is available as a coupe or a mid-sized family sedan with seating for up to five passengers.  Standard safety equipment includes stability control and side curtain airbags, and it scored quite well in crash tests.  The Honda Accord’s biggest drawback (as is all too common in family sedans) is mediocre handling and brakes.  Some of its competitors are also faster, or less expensive, or more sporty and prestigious.  The secret to the Honda Accord success, however, is that it’s well-rounded—it scores well in all areas, rather than excelling in a few and falling short in others, as its competitors often do.

The popular compact Honda Civic has also been around for more than 25 years, and has a reputation for good reliability at reasonable prices.  Available as a coupe or sedan, the Honda Civic’s engine performance is decent at best, but the gas mileage is excellent.  The steering and handling are also impressive.  Standard safety equipment includes antilock brakes, front seat side airbags and full-length side curtain airbags.  Unfortunately, the Honda Civic’s excellent fuel economy comes at the price of its biggest drawback—the standard 1.8-liter, 140 hp V4 engine provides only adequate performance and acceleration, and feels somewhat underpowered and sluggish when carrying a full load of passengers.  Still, the Honda Civic is a smart buy for shoppers looking for a used sedan, and its long production run and wide variety of models mean you’ll probably be able to find exactly what you want to fit your needs.

Finally, the Honda CR-V is Honda’s most popular SUV.  It was one of the first small SUVs.  Honda CR-V’s smaller, 2.4-liter 166 hp V4 engine and five-speed manual transmission provided much better gas mileage that the mid- and full-sized SUVs popular when the Honda CR-V first entered the market in the late 1990s.  This feature, combined with a competitive price, only increased the Honda CR-V’s popularity as gas prices quickly rose in the new millennium.

The Honda CR-V utilized a car-based design, and thus provided a good sedan-like smooth ride, nimble handling, and high safety scores.  At the same time, the four-door, five-passenger Honda CR-V still offered the passenger space and cargo capacity of an SUV.  The Honda CR-V’s rugged reliability and optional four-wheel drive for handling foul weather rounded out its list of SUV benefits.

The Honda CR-V’s biggest failing is its comparatively weak engine for an SUV.  The acceleration is not great, making merging and passing more of a chore, and the engine strains on steep gradients, especially when hauling a full load.  On the other hand, some argue, the Honda CR-V was not designed to be a powerful off-road vehicle.  It was designed to be a practical alternative to a minivan for city and suburban dwellers—and in this respect, the Honda CR-V excels at its job.

For the 2009 model year, the Honda Odyssey has experienced only a few minor, mostly cosmetic changes.  Considering the Odyssey was significantly upgraded last year, and a complete redesign is scheduled for 2010, this is terribly surprising.  The EX-L trim level was updated this year, gaining a power lift gate and an optional Bluetooth-integrated navigation system.  That’s about it for 2009.

The Honda Odyssey comes in four trim levels: the LX, EX, EX-L, and the Touring.  The base-level LX comes with to manual sliding side doors, keyless entry, dual-zone air conditioning, a tilting and telescoping steering wheel, and a four-speaker AM/FM/CD stereo with an MP3 jack.  The next step up is the EX, which features powered sliding side doors, automatic triple-zone climate control, and a six-speaker stereo system.  On the higher end of the scale, the EX-L provides even more bells and whistles, including powered and heated front seats, a back-up camera, a power lift gate, satellite radio and a sunroof.  Optional extras include a DVD entertainment system and a navigation system.  Finally, the Touring sits at the top of the line, including run-flat tires (described below), rear parking sensors, driver memory positioning, and a top notch audio system.

All Honda Odysseys have a five-speed automatic transmission and two front-wheel drive.  The standard Honda Odyssey is powered by a 3.5-liter V6 engine that produced a respectable 244 horsepower and 240 pound-feet of torque.  In the two higher-end Odyssey trim levels, the EX-L and the Touring, the engine features a fuel-saving capability called Variable Cylinder Management (VCM).  At cruising speeds, this engine can deactivate two or three of its six cylinders, raising its fuel economy to 17 mpg (27 kpg) for city driving and 25 mpg (40 kpg) on the highway.

The Honda Odyssey has some of the best handling in the minivan market.  The acceleration provided by the V6 engine is good, if a little loud.  The steering is very responsive, with a surprisingly tight turning radius.  The suspension is quite good, and the Honda Odyssey’s ride, although not the best among minivans, is still smooth.

The basic Odyssey LX can seat up to seven passengers.  The EX, EX-L, and Touring can all increase the seating capacity up to eight passengers due to a stowable center seat in the second row.  When not in use as a chair, this additional seat can be turned into a tray table, or folded down into a storage area in the floor.

The third row of bench seats can hold three passengers, or be folded down to make more cargo space.  When this third row of seats is removed, the Honda Odyssey can hold 91 cubic feet (28 cubic meters) of cargo.  If this second row of seats is removed as well, cargo space increases to over 147 cubic feet (45 cubic meters) of storage space.  In terms of passenger and cargo capacity, the Honda Odyssey is about on par with other top shelf minivans, but beats out crossover SUVs easily.

The Honda Odyssey has an impressive range of safety equipment.  Standard safety features for all trim levels include full-length head curtain airbags, front seat side-impact airbags, active front head restraints, a rollover sensor, stability control, and antilock disc brakes with brake assist.  The top-of-the-line trim level, the Touring, also includes Michelin run-flat tires that can be driven for over a hundred miles while punctured.   In government front and side impact crash tests, the Honda Odyssey earned a perfect five stars.

Overall, the Honda Odyssey is one of the best minivans on the market.  It easily beats out crossover SUVs in spaciousness and cargo capacity.  As a minivan, it’s a relatively fuel-efficient family vehicle that feels and handles more like a sedan.