Honda is capitalizing on nostalgia from the 1990s and early 2000s by reintroducing the Prelude in the form of a “performance-oriented” hybrid coupe. The result is a $43,000 car that seems cool on paper, but not super competitive in reality. Honda should have made it an electric car.
In this current economic climate, the buyer pool with over $40,000 to spend on a new car is pretty small to begin with. And the type of shopper with that kind of cash who is willing to give up the practicality of a sedan or crossover typically seeks a more analog experience with a manual transmission, and/or wants something with serious performance. The Prelude offers neither despite its trick CVT with the S+ Shift system, and only 200 horsepower.
While the Prelude gets the braking and suspension components from the Civic Type R, it’s not really meant to be a track car, so few drivers will really feel the added benefits from the upgraded handling over the already excellent Civic Hybrid, which retails for about $10,000 less with comparable equipment. While it’s hard to look at performance cars with a rational angle, you could make the argument that the Civic Type R’s capabilities somewhat justify the price premium over the standard Civic. I’m not convinced that the Prelude’s driving experience is ten grand better than its commuter car cousin.
Who Will Actually Buy This?
Let’s examine the hypothetical buyer for the Prelude. This is not the car that gets bought by someone randomly walking into the showroom. Honda is well aware that nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and is aiming this model squarely at someone like me who grew up with 90’s and early 2000’s imports and had a subscription to Sport Compact Car magazine. My first fun car was a ’95 Prelude Si 5-speed (non-VTEC) that I bought for ten grand, and then proceeded to “upgrade” it over the years with a cold-air intake, headers, cat-back exhaust, clear taillights, and a coilover suspension kit that arguably ruined the factory setup.
I am at the age and income bracket where a Prelude could work. My kids are old enough to either sit in the front seat or slink into the back of a coupe and still be comfortable. My current car is a 2015 Volkswagen GTI manual, but we are also a Honda household, as the family hauler is a 2019 Odyssey. When the time comes to move on from the VW, I would not mind another Honda. Yet, the appeal of the Prelude just isn’t there. I get the draw of the Civic Type R if I wanted an even more extreme experience compared to the GTI, or even the Civic Hybrid if I wanted to prioritize better MPGs, but still enjoy zipping around.
I will admit I have this strange mindset where I feel like if I am going to give up having a clutch pedal, I might as well take advantage of an all electric car. The Prelude was originally intended to be a “high tech” performance coupe with the super cool digital dashboard and available “super handling” four-wheel-steering system. Other than perhaps the transmission, there is nothing particularly “high-tech” about this new Prelude.
A Missed Opportunity
However, a small electric coupe would have been a high-tech option that no other automaker is offering. Honda now has their own dedicated EV platform with the upcoming 0 series, it could have had a futuristic interior and torque-vectoring (Super Handling) system like the original Prelude. You might argue that the market for EV buyers is still quite small compared to ICE/hybrid cars, but the electric market is steadily growing while the demand for $40,000 front-wheel-drive coupes is almost nonexistent. The automaker could have re-launched the Prelude using an EV setup, it would have generated buzz and would have been a great transition for the brand. While Honda has sporty EVs under consideration in the future, the Prelude was a missed opportunity.
The reality is that a parts-bin special banking on a nostalgic nameplate makes more financial sense for the bean counters at Honda. The result is a pricey car that is less efficient than an EV, but with performance that is just on par with much cheaper cars wrapped in a body that carries hints of past Preludes but overall is fairly generic in terms of styling.
Maybe I am just a jaded Gen-Xer, and it’s certainly possible that Honda dealers will be selling Preludes with markups because there are buyers out there willing to pay big bucks for this thing. But my prediction is that after a little bit of hype at launch, Preludes will be collecting dust in dealer showrooms.
Tom McParland is a contributing writer for Jalopnik and runs AutomatchConsulting.com. He takes the hassle out of buying or leasing a car. Got a car buying question? Send it to Tom@AutomatchConsulting.com
