While extremely utilitarian, the Honda Odyssey is one of the more boring cars one could spend their money. The Tesla Model S Plaid, on the other hand, manages to blend practicality with blistering speed and acceleration.
At first, it may seem that these two vehicles couldn’t be more different, but as Kyle Wade of BoostedBoiz found out, they have one key similarity that allows the sedan’s 1,000+ horsepower powertrain to be melded with the minivan’s sensible body.
The whole idea started with his 2001 Honda Odyssey, which was purchased for $500 with 290,000 miles (466,710 km) on the odometer. He was about to throw it away, but one night he stumbled upon the fact that it has a nearly identical wheelbase and width to the Tesla Model S Plaid. Since he had one of those lying around from another project, he figured he’d try mounting the Odyssey’s body on the Tesla’s running gear to make the ultimate sleeper minivan. And so, the “Honda Plaidessey” was born.
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Before diving headfirst into the project, the team first needed to make sure it was even feasible. To do that, instead of cutting up their perfectly good Model S, they used the chassis of a destroyed donor car. Once it was found that everything from the Honda (mostly) fit, they moved on to fitting the minivan’s body panels to the working Model S.
The biggest issue was with the hardpoints of the doors. The wheel-to-door distance on the Honda was shorter than the Tesla, meaning the door would have to sit about 6 inches (15.2 cm) farther forward than normal in to properly meet with the fender. It made ingress and egress a bit harder, but it was a compromise they were willing to make to get that Tesla powertrain in there.
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They then decided that before chopping up the body of their working minivan, they would buy a junked, engineless Odyssey to test-fit the body first. From there, it was just a matter of cutting the van’s floor out, getting the body on a lift, then mating it to the Tesla base after some trimming.
After several months, the team was able to move on from prototypes and junked donor cars to the real deal. They mated the Odyssey’s body to the working Plaid skateboard, then cut off the Tesla‘s windshield, reinstalled the original driver’s seat, and raised it as high as it would go. This step was crucial, as the sunken-down seating position of the sedan made for a few extra inches of firewall in the driver’s field of view. From there, they trimmed away the van body some more, then reinforced the mounting points since cutting out the floor removed a lot of rigidity.
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The final step involved making the van aesthetically whole again. They reattached the doors, added the passenger seat, and reinstalled all the body panels. A fresh windshield was also installed, and the tailgate was put back into place to complete the full minivan look.
While the powertrain and shell are finished, there’s still some work to be done before this incredible build is entirely complete. Firstly, they need to address the air suspension issue, which is currently throwing an error that limits their top speed. Additionally, they must provide support for the grille and add a proper hood latch, as there’s currently nothing in the engine bay for that purpose. Finally, they plan to restore the sliding doors’ functionality, install Tesla’s rear seats, and ensure the lighting and windows are functional again to bring back some of the minivan’s creature comforts.