Should I buy a Honda Odyssey?

[Nick]

There is a craigslist dude selling an odyssey of unknown vintage and he will take $500 for it. It runs but needs some work on the breaks and wheels (to hold air).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Odyssey_FL250

[Nick]

I guess no one has an opinion on how I should spend my money I can understand that.

So then, anyone want a ride if I get one? Those two little yellow go-karts of years and good times past have been promised to a friend of the family with more motivation then I to fix them (I have fixed them a few times, but those cheap Chinese carbs keep flaking out.) So I though for the right price I would move up to a bigger toy and maybe also sell the dirtbike that never (since the first day I got it! Curse that swidler who took his knavery out upon my well-meaning parents), never ever shifted out of first gear for as lone as I have been in possession of it.

Ideally I would want to get two buggies of some creed or another, because who wants to ride alone. Also, racing is fun. Vroom.

[Cody]

I actually though I responded. I don't really have an opinion so to speak...but they do look like they would be tons of fun! Though like you said two would be better.

But, $500 is still $500

[Brad]

I will volunteer to ride whatever you get as long as the chance of it exploding is 20% or less.

[Nick]

A 1/5 chance of exploding is pretty bad. I personally won't ride anything with over a 1/20 chance. 

[Cody]

You call a 5% chance of something you get into failing catastrophically good? Call me crazy, but I don't think I would get in or on anything that might explode if it has greater than...say a 1 in 1000. A 0.1% chance of death seems like a fairly safe bet to make...MAYBE.

That being said, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Honda. If I wasn't quite so broke I would pitch in some money. I suppose I might be able to. At the very least I could set aside some time to offer my limited skills in repairing it with you.

[Nick]

I went and looked at one of the odysseys yesterday. It is a real frankenbeast. It has a regular FL250 frame, with a honda CB750 engine in the back and the swing-arm from a quad bolted to what used to be the back of the vehicle, adding several feet to the wheelbase. Still shorter then a truck. Maybe the same length as a shorter jeep. Longer then a Suzuki sidekick/Geo Tracker I think.

It definitely has potential. Potential to fall apart if anyone tried to get that thing up to top speed (with the motorcycle transmission you could EASILY go 80-90MPH if you had the room... just don't try and turn while doing it.

Does not look like it is in danger of exploding, jut getting stuck if you try and turn around any place tight.
Does look like it could do cookies 'till Tuesday and back again

It has the potential (all the parts are there) to become something like this:

This is also longer then a standard odyssey, but not as much so.

[Nick]

I guess the answer was no. For now anyway. So what did I buy? Look here... http://randomland.net/forum/index.php/topic,258.0.html