For a while there, it felt like Japanese automakers had abandoned car enthusiasts, but recent years have blessed us with an embarrassment of hot metal. Not to be left out, Honda is getting in on the action too. It’s joyously announced that the Prelude name is coming back on a svelte new coupe, and boy howdy. It’s a looker.
We first got a glimpse of the Prelude concept last year, and it looked good in white. Honda has now refined the design, and it looks even better in red. The traditional coupe proportions are paired with distinctive styling elements that make it instantly recognizable. Chief among them are the deep front air dam and the trapezoidal beak on the front bumper. Visually, it gives the Prelude a pointed, sporting edge. It demands you get in and wring the engine for every last rev it’s worth.
The new Prelude is already slated for production and will be based on the Civic platform. The red one will make a public appearance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Full details on the power train aren’t yet available, but we know it’s going to be a hybrid unit. The smart money says that Honda will use something like the 2.0-liter hybrid drivetrain from the current Honda Civic, which would put power in the 200 hp range.
The UK and Europe will be getting the Prelude by the “mid-2020s,” we know that much. It will be a global model, be built in left- and right-hand-drive configurations. Will it come to the US, though? We’ve checked with Honda, but the vibes are: yeah.
The Prelude looks like an out-and-out sport compact, but it’s not going to be too hardcore. Speaking to CarsGuide last year, Honda’s Large Project Chief Engineer Tomoyuki Yamagami noted that it won’t be on the bleeding edge. “This isn’t going to be the sportiest, zippiest car that’s going to be tossed into the circuits, so that’s one thing,” he said.
Yamagami also hinted that the Prelude has an important role to play. “The other one is, this is going to be the ‘prelude’ for all of the electric vehicles that Honda is going to be launching,” said Yamagami. Hence the name. Perfect, right?
Given the history of the Prelude nameplate, going with this angle makes sense in a way. Jump back a few decades, and Honda had a rich and varied lineup of front-wheel-drive vehicles. You could get the Civic as a basic grocery-getter, or you could upgrade to the quicker Civic Si or the racier Type R. If you wanted something with a sportier body style, the Integra was happy to serve, the dowdy sedan versions notwithstanding. Meanwhile, the Prelude sat a cut above in the luxury stakes, more a GT car than a boy racer. Think of it this way: the Integra was for the stop light drags outside KFC, while the Prelude was for picking up your date on the way to a cocktail bar.
Mixed ‘Em Up
It’s at this point I have to question if Honda has mixed up its nameplates in recent years. 2022 saw the launch of the new Acura Integra, with enthusiasts cheering the return of the famous name. If you’d just watched Fast and the Furious, you might have been expecting a low-slung two-door coupe with good power and razor-sharp handling. But that’s not what you got.
Instead, the new Acura Integra was a chunky reskin of the existing Honda Civic, with more luxury appointments and a heavier curb weight. Its saving grace was the 320-horsepower Type S engine which at least made it competitive with the contemporary Civic Type R.
Somehow, the Integra name ended up on a bloated compact luxury car with four doors. Forget driving a stripped-out Integra with a fart-can exhaust to your pizza delivery job. The new Integra was perfect for throwing in a couple of car seats and hauling the kids to daycare before you rocked up to the office with Janine’s birthday cake.
Here we are, two years later, and Honda’s showing us this delicate weapon of a coupe. It looks like it wants to run, baby. The proportions are the perfect spiritual successor to the legendary Integra DC2. Seriously, compare the vehicles below. Tell me which one looks more like a new Integra.
Of course, the new concept could still easily live under the Prelude name. Previous Preludes were sleek two-doors with plenty of style, after all. However, the Preludes always had a longer hood and a more luxurious design. This new concept is so tight and so sporty that it’s hard to understand why Honda didn’t save the Integra name for this one – even if it has more of a GT bent!
Ultimately, the new Prelude should be a winner. Honda knows how to make a front-wheel-drive car exciting and useable in equal measure. Design-wise, it’s already a hit, too. I’ll just be left wondering why we got a whale of an Integra when this lithe little dancer was waiting in the wings.
In any case, I can’t wait to drive one. Here’s hoping the Prelude hits markets the world over. Pester your local dealer today.
Image credits: Honda, Acura