Honda marketed the first generation Odyssey in two trim levels. The design featured unibody construction, dual airbags, dual gloveboxes, dual zone heating and cooling with 20 percent greater capacity than an Accord's system (overhead rear fan-speed adjustment control, and main control switch over the front-seat passenger), conventional rear swing-open rather than sliding doors, and a third row seat that could fold and tumble into a compartment beneath the floor - the spacesaver spare tire carried inside, on the right, rear wall of the cabin. This class of vehicles would subsequently become known as Compact MPV.

The 1995 Odyssey was introduced in 1994 as Honda's first minivan - based on the Accord platform, with a 4-cylinder engine, all-disc anti-lock braking, all wishbone suspension, and a four-speed automatic transmission with a steering-column-mounted shifter and a hill-hold feature, marketed as Grade Logic. Both versions of the Odyssey are currently sold in the Middle East. Both versions of the Odyssey were sold in Japan at Honda Clio dealership locations. Honda also offered the larger North American Odyssey in Japan as the LaGreat (ラグレイト, Ragureito) beginning in June 1999 through 2005. Since model year 1999, Honda has marketed a larger (large MPV-class) Odyssey in North America and a smaller Odyssey in Japan and other markets. Subsequent generations diverged to reflect market variations, and Honda built a plant in Lincoln, Alabama, United States, incorporating the ability to manufacture larger models. The first generation Odyssey was marketed in Europe as the Honda Shuttle. The result was a smaller minivan, in the compact MPV class, that was well received in the Japanese domestic market and less well received in North America. The Odyssey had originally been conceived and engineered in Japan, in the wake of the country's economic crisis of the 1990s – which in turn imposed severe constraints on the vehicle's size and overall concept, dictating the minivan's manufacture in an existing facility with minimal modification. For the North American market, the Honda Odyssey, is a minivan manufactured and marketed by Japanese automaker Honda since 1994, now in its fifth generation, which began in 2018.

2020 honda odyssey