I went into the article with my guard up and was pretty pessimistic about it. I have to give it to the author though, he knows his stuff. He correctly identified the Prelude as a 2 door Accord and got his facts straight about its evolution all the way through the discontinuation. This article was clearly written by a car guy. He even got what the new Prelude is correct, basically a Civic hybrid but with some handling borrowed from the Civic Type R.
He fails to address that it was clearly designed by committee though, and that Honda has pretty steadily returned to design decisions that they apologized for when their cars hit a new low in the late 2000s and early 2010s. They even apologized for it 15 years ago:
[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna46603235](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna46603235)
The Prelude should not have hit the market with the performance that it had, especially at the price tag that it had. This feels like the CR-Z all over again. Revive an enthusiast sporty nameplate, put it on something boring, and let it fail. Engineers had to have been removed from the decision making for this car to have made it to market.
To be fair, the apology was specifically for the first version of the 9th gen civic.
This was realistically because the 8th gen civic was the high water mark of Honda, and they were never going to top it.
Even without the economic fall out of the Great Recession, Honda *still* hasn't made a civic quite like the 8th gen since.
That car was lightning in a bottle, and we will most likely never return to engines like the NA k20 ever again
> This feels like the CR-Z all over again. Revive an enthusiast sporty nameplate, put it on something boring, and let it fail.
tbf the CRZ was 1000% a successor to the CRX. People just wanted to hate it. The CRX was a tiny efficiency focused hatch, the majority of them had something like 110 HP. Honda then went through the trouble of doing a hybrid system that worked with a manual transmission too.
It was as true to a CRX as a modern car could have been, people just didn't want it because they largely don't want those sorts of cars anymore.
No way, every CRX was a JDM B16A1-powered hot hatch. Sketchy 20 year old YouTube drag videos would never lie to me.
In all seriousness, a minor correction: in the US market, 110hp was limited to the Si. Most of them actually had 70 (HF) or 90 (base) hp lol.
> At the time, the base Mustang 2.3 had 88hp and did a 0-60 about as fast as the base Camaro which were both significantly slower than the CRX HF.
We just in this thread making things up lol. A CRX HF had a 0-60 time of 11 seconds and ran the quarter in over 18 seconds.
None of these cars were ever thought of as fast.
Who's the one making things up? CRX as you mention had a 0-60 of 11 seconds. The Mustang did 0-60 in 13 seconds. And the 1/4 mile was 19 seconds, not 17.
[https://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1988/869420/ford\_mustang\_lx\_2-door\_hatchback\_2\_3l\_efi.html](https://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1988/869420/ford_mustang_lx_2-door_hatchback_2_3l_efi.html)
I'm pointing out that you can't point to the horsepower of a CRX when it came out 40 years ago as some kind of defense of the CRZ without pointing out that from a performance perspective compared to what was available at the time, it was respected for its performance.
lmao this isn't test data, this is catalog data which is notoriously overshooting vs actual tests and real world examples.
Brother you're just insistent on completely reinventing what the CRX was, and completely reinventing what these cars were. They're all slow ass economy cars, the CRX was not "significantly" faster than anything, it ran an 18 second quarter mile right in line with everything else.
I don't know why you're obsessed with comparing it to a four cylinder mustang anyway, it's eco car for eco car, but lying and saying it's "significantly faster" when we're talking cars that all run 18s is laughably delulu
I'm not reinventing anything. The CRX was a reasonably competitive sporty car that won national championships. It has the trophies to back that up. The CRZ wasn't reasonably competitive as a sporty vehicle.
I'm comparing the the CRX to the base Mustang to give a relative yardstick that you could measure against. Bringing up horsepower and 1/4 mile times without historical context is meaningless. The CRX was competitive from a performance standpoint, but it also gave you Honda reliability and significant increases in efficiency. To put it another way: let's say I am a 20 year old person with disposable income in 1985. I could buy a new Mustang, or for about the same price I could buy a CRX. The performance of those 2 cars is close enough to be a stones throw, since you won't agree with published data. You keep trying to disclaim its performance despite winning national championships and documented evidence of Honda supporting it in racing.
So let's go to 2015 and carry out the same experiment: Can I buy a CRZ and meaningfully match a base Mustang's performance? No you cannot, and the overwhelming negative reviews back that up. The sales figures back that up. The race results back that up. The public outcry back that up.
Here's how the 1985 CRX performed with 90 hp:
[https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a15142112/honda-civic-crx-15si-review/](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a15142112/honda-civic-crx-15si-review/)
Here are what other sporty coupes did at the time:
[https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a43510355/1985-sports-coupes-compared/](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a43510355/1985-sports-coupes-compared/)
Now go do the same thing with the CRZ. It's uncompetitive, and that's why it died.
It wasn't, it was a fun to drive economy car, you keep talking about trophies so I mentioned the same thing with other economy cars, you're just doing mental backflip after mental backflip to pretend like this was something other than what it was lol.
>So let's go to 2015 and carry out the same experiment: Can I buy a CRZ and meaningfully match a base Mustang's performance?
Either you're clueless or you are just openly trying to BS your way out of saying something silly lol. A base mustang from the 80s was an economy car, a base mustang from the 2010s is not.
The four cylinder mustangs were all post fuel crisis economy offerings, through and through. It had a 2.73 final drive, this isn't a sports car, yet you keep trying to pretend it is to justify arguing that a CRX HF, literally labeled "high fuel efficiency" and marketed as an eco car, is a sports car lol. I don't understand how you can be so argumentative and so completely detached from reality lol.
We fundamentally disagree then, and there's no point in continuing. We're both looking at the same facts and coming to wildly different conclusions. I'm showing you that the original CRX:
* won national championships which proved its race heritage
* evidence that Honda had widespread support for it in motorsport
* proof of what performance looked like at the time, considering these 2 links that show it can compete favorably both from a handling and 1/4 mile time compared to other cars that were considered sporty at the time. So even if you reject the Mustang, its numbers are pretty favorable to the cars in the 2nd link
It's not a matter of opinion, you're sitting there arguing with people that cars explicitly marketed as fuel efficient economy cars are actually sports cars. That's not a disagreement, you're objectively incorrect and exhibiting typical reddit traits where you're proven wrong but don't have the maturity to stop arguing lol.
Have a good one my man, but damn you've really got a lot of learning to do here.
From that 1st link:
>From the April 1985 Issue of Car and Driver.
>1985 Honda Civic CRX 1.5Si
>1/4 mile: 16.4 @ 81 mph
>Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.76 g
From that 2nd link:
>From the May 1985 issue of Car and Driver
>1985 Nissan 300ZX 2+2
>1/4 mile: 16.8 sec @ 82 mph
>Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.77 g
You:
>These are not cars that were considered sporty.
I'm not rehashing this with you my man, at every comment you've only proven that you're not reading and don't care about reality. I don't know how you don't see it, but you gotta get some self awareness lol.
take care homie
There's nothing to rehash. You've chosen to die on the hill that the CRX was not in any way considered sporty at the time it was sold in showrooms. You feel that it would somehow shatter your worldview of what a disappointment the CRZ was upon release. There are no facts that would change your worldview, even showing that its performance was well in line with cars that were considered sporty at the time. Even showing you that a 1985 CRX with 90hp that got 32mpg will out accelerate a Nissan 300ZX 2+2 in the 1/4 mile won't sway you.
The CRX was efficiency focused while also being sporty for the time. Yeah the CRX had 110hp, but context matters. If you're going to throw out that number, then compare it to the 1983 Mustang 5.0 of the time with 175hp. Or when the 2nd gen CRX came out in 1988, yeah the Mustang 5.0 increased to 225hp, but there was also the base Mustang 2.3 with 88hp so that 110hp that you were buying was more horsepower than the majority of Mustangs sold that year for reference.
People didn't want to hate it, it deserved the hate that it got. It wasn't sporty when it was released, it got pretty good city fuel economy, but the highway fuel economy was barely better than a regular Civic which meant that people looked at a hybrid that got 38mpg when a regular Civic got 35 and asked "why?" It wasn't sporty and wasn't especially efficient, so really the worst of both worlds. All of this has been beaten to death, hashed, and rehashed. The reviews of the time, the forum discussions of the time, and the sales figures all support this.
The reviews and sales figures all support what I said lol, they made a legit successor to the CRX and the public didn't want it because they don't want cars like that.
Your comparisons are nonsensical here, the CRX Si had 110hp, the base models were far less than that (70 or 90hp depending on trim). But also, comparing it to the worst generations of Mustang is kinda silly, everyone knew those were bad cars.
If you'd like a more direct comparison, the 88 Prelude had 135hp compared to the CRX's sport trim being 110, the Supra base trim had 200 horsepower, the 300z had 165 horsepower in base trim, etc.
Again, this thing wasn't a sports car. It was an economy hatch. The new CRZ was also an economy hatch. It wasn't a super hybrid, it was a bit more economical, a bit smaller, and a bit sportier than a civic - which is exactly what the original CRX was.
You're proving my point here, people use these forced rose colored glasses to look back on models of old and turn them in to something they never were lol.
[https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a15129826/2011-honda-cr-z-hybrid-review/](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a15129826/2011-honda-cr-z-hybrid-review/)
[https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/07/review-2011-honda-crz/](https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/07/review-2011-honda-crz/)
The reviews and sales figured proved that the CR-Z was NOT a legit successor to the CRX. It wasn't sporty compared to the sporty competition, unlike the origina CR-X. It wasn't efficient compared to the efficient competition. It was a disappointing car. It wasn't a legit successor to the CR-X. It wasn't competitive against the competition regardless of whether you were an efficiency buyer or a fun car buyer. Compare that to the praise that the CRX got, look at 5 minutes where they say "the CRX is plenty fast enough":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24a0rarx\_fk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24a0rarx_fk)
Where in the world did you get that the more direct comparison for actual power standards? Look at prices to see what people were actually buying in the price range:
* 1988 Mustang starting price $8,800
* 1988 CRX $8,500
* 1988 300ZX $21,000 for the base, like $24k for turbo
* 1988 Supra $21,600, like $24,600 for the turbo
* 1988 Prelude $14,600
It was absolutely a sports car, you are the one with rose colored glasses. Look at all of this history and try to tell me that it wasn't meant to be sporty. Go learn your history instead of being r/confidentlyincorrect
[https://www.motortrend.com/features/1408-1980s-honda-crx-gt4-engine-history](https://www.motortrend.com/features/1408-1980s-honda-crx-gt4-engine-history)
[https://www.motortrend.com/features/1402-doug-peterson-interview](https://www.motortrend.com/features/1402-doug-peterson-interview)
So SCCA Runoffs 1985, Doug Peterson wins GT4 class with Honda's support. Then 1986 Parker Johnstone again GT4 winner. Then 1987 Don Erb again 1st place, so that's 3 years in a row racing and winning with Honda's encouragement. And Don Erb kept winning, dropping but still podium for a few more years into 2nd, 3rd, and then 4th. So how's that again about it not being a sports car, despite Honda helping to field it in racing? Here's a 1985 article about how the 1.5 liter one was so competitive that it was bumped up multiple classes in SCCA solo so that we can look downmarket, just to get ahead of any other complaints about it not being sporty across the range:
[https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/at-engineering-honda-civic-crx-tbt/](https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/at-engineering-honda-civic-crx-tbt/)
Or later in the IMSA series:
[https://www.instagram.com/p/CloxeUjPlT9/?hl=hu](https://www.instagram.com/p/CloxeUjPlT9/?hl=hu)
The CRX was efficient and sporty. Reviewers loved it, the general public loved it, people that raced cars loved it. It's still being used in racing today.
The CRZ was neither especially efficient nor especially sporty. It wasn't ever really adopted by the racing community outside of a few showcases. Yeah there were a few owners that loved it, but there were a few owners that loved their Yugos and Ford Pintos too. There was never really a groundswell of fans like you find with the Honda Fit for example.
> The reviews and sales figured proved that the CR-Z was NOT a legit successor to the CRX.
Lmao I don't think you're actually reading these comments before jumping in to being hyper argumentative. The entire point is that the segment is dead, that's why it didn't sell, not that the car was a poor follow up.
Reviews aren't supporting what you're insisting on, you keep harping on sportiness the original CRX was never meant to be a sporty option. It's top trim had 110hp, the normal variants had 70 or 90hp.
The CRX was literally a smaller cut down Civic, with a smaller engine. The CRZ was effectively the same thing - albeit with a mild hybrid system. The power differentials were about the same, the weight savings again about the same.
>Where in the world did you get that the more direct comparison for actual power standards?
IDK man, you're the one who started comparing it to 5.0 mustangs, I thought it made no sense too but I was following your lead lol. I am again reiterating that you've built up some revisionist history of what the CRX was so that you can sit here throwing tantrums in reddit comments. I don't get it.
>Look at prices to see what people were actually buying in the price range:
This makes as much sense as your prior comparison to the 5.0 lol. Prices don't tell you anything about who was buying what or why. A fully loaded Tahoe and a corvette are about the same cost today, would you say the tahoe is a sports car? Does that sound smart to you?
>It was absolutely a sports car, you are the one with rose colored glasses. Look at all of this history and try to tell me that it wasn't meant to be sporty. Go learn your history
This says absolutely nothing about the market segment the car existed in lol. Toyota races a Camry as their NASCAR car, Chevy used the Malibu in racing events for years, there's entire racing leagues of Altimas, etc.
Are you going to storm in to the Prius subreddit and let them all know their car is a legit sports car because Toyota raced one in GT300? Be serious here lol.
>The CRZ was neither especially efficient nor especially sporty. It wasn't ever really adopted by the racing community outside of a few showcases.
Again, you're proving my point here, that market segment is mostly dead. People don't race those types of cars anymore, they don't buy those types of cars anymore, the entire ideal of taking a small commuter car focused on efficiency and racing it is mostly nonexistent with modern cars.
IDK what made you decide this was a fight you wanted to pick or why, but history doesn't support anything you're saying it does. This thing wasn't a sportscar, it was an economy car that was fun to drive. Period. The CRZ wasn't a sports car, it was an economy car that was fun to drive being sold in a market where consumers no longer cared about that.
I'm not being hyperargumentative, you just keep making false statements and keep using logical fallacies. I'm just correcting your misunderstandings.
The CRX was meant to be a sporty option despite your claims, even Honda is attributed with saying that. They literally supported it in various race series. You are just taking the car out of context by judging its power and performance numbers by today's standards. It was sporty, and that's why literal race cars drivers consistently bought it across multiple classes of auto racing to literally engage in sport. You are arguing that it wasn't sporty when it was literally winning 1st place in its class. That's why Honda supported the CRX in Japan, UK, USA, and other countries in various race series. There's no revisionist history when I can point to clear race results with the car that you keep claiming wasn't sporty.
The CRZ didn't fail because that car style is a dead segment. The CRZ failed because it was poorly received and no one bought it. Just like 1 of those reviews that I linked said, "why would I buy a CRZ when it gets only 2mpg better than a Mini Cooper, despite the CRZ being hybrid?" Plus the Mini Cooper is fun to drive and has a back seat. And I'm using that as an example because the Mini Cooper is part of that segment that you claim is dead, but the Cooper sold 250,000 from 2011-2016 while the CRZ sold 29,000 in that time period. The Scion tC sold 108,000. The Miata sold 41,000.
I brought up the Mustang to prove that at the time that the CRX had 110 hp that you mention, at the time it wasn't considered especially underpowered. It was fairly in line with various other popular cars at the time that you might consider instead. You are bringing up the 110hp of the CRX from 40 years ago as if it justifies the 120hp of the CRZ from 10 years ago. But 40 years ago, a 110hp CRX had 20hp more than a base model Mustang for example, so it wasn't catastrophically underpowered for an efficient, sporty car.
To your question, plenty of sports cars were running 16s in the mid 1980s. The Mustang that you pointed to, for one. Here are a bunch of cars that cost thousands more than the CRX, and 7 out of 8 of them ran a 1/4 mile in the 16s:
[https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a43510355/1985-sports-coupes-compared/](https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a43510355/1985-sports-coupes-compared/)
You bring up cars like the NASCAR Camry and the GT300 Prius. Those aren't actually production cars, and I wonder if you're now trolling. The CRX results were actual production Honda CRX bought off of the showroom floor and outside of race prep, they are still the production car. You're bringing up silhouette cars, aka they still look like the production version and maybe share a small amount of the original car's frame, but they're largely tube frame, use wildly different engines than you'd find in the showroom. The CRZ was a sports car because it was used in sports. If you don't believe national 1st place results in SCCA or obvious pictures of the car being used as a race car in series like IMSA, I don't know what else to tell you.
Brother you are typing out whole novels because you're upset someone pointed out an economy car is an economy car.
The CRX is not and was never a sports car. Being in a race series doesn't prove that, piles and piles of economy cars are in race series.
> I wonder if you're now trolling.
I think you just don't read all that well and have decided that you're going to argue yourself out of not understanding the conversation at all, then saying a bunch of silly things. Have at it homie, ain't gonna ever make this crazy nonsense about the CRX being a sports car not crazy lol.
I really wanted to like the new Prelude, I love the idea of a nimble sportier hybrid, but it seems like Honda didn't really know what they wanted to do. IMO they should have just given is the si chassis components rather than the Type R's to bring the price down.
This is unrealistic, but it'd have been really cool if Honda gas engine in the Prelude Hybrid with a high-revving NA engine like the Honda engines of old. The car is going to be efficient regardless, the Prelude would have been better off sacrificing some of that efficiency to serve as a showcase that you can make a hybrid vehicle with character
IDK how feasible this would have been but something like a mild hybrid system that they could have attached to a better gearbox would have been really interesting.
Take like a 1.5L derivative of the K engines, drop a mild hybrid system between it and the transmission, offer it with a good auto or six speed, then put it in the package they've got.
Basically take something like the old CRZ drivetrain, push up the power a bit, and drop that in rather than the CVT fake shift nonsense they went with.
The car in general is fantastic outside of the drivetrain as far as I can tell.
Counter to your point with Japan, though, younger people say it's too expensive and aimed at old men there, as well. You can't take the direct exchange rate and apply it to US dollars, as the economy is different there. A CTR is nearly ¥1.2M less than a Prelude in Japan, and that's insane - even if you did use the exchange rate directly, that's $7500 more expensive, and it's amplified even more when you consider we get a screaming deal on yen right now.
Sure, but they're selling them very well there which is the point. I don't think Honda wanted this to be a young person's car, I think it was very much intended for the older buyer who wants good driving dynamics but in an efficient package.
The powertrain is just a big miss imo, but the rest of the car very much does hit that target and is doing pretty well with the japanese buyer they targeted
Are they actually selling well in Japan or are you just referencing that report about good sales literally right when the vehicle came out?
I feel like this is the kind of car that will fill its niche quickly, after which sales will evaporate.
I mean, they've sold out the entire year's allocation and Honda has pushed up production, so it would seem that so far demand is there. No telling how long that lasts of course.
I don't understand - what you just said is contradictory. It the car is focused on efficiency and vehicle dynamics for an older buyer, then the powertrain didn't miss, it's dead on. That being said, my point was that the car has the same image problem in Japan - that it's overpriced for what it is, and is questioned as to whether it's an "old man's car".
As for selling very well - the true test will come this year for Japan. The 2400 pre-orders were the total allocation limit, and it was similar with the Type R launch - Honda said they'd be limiting how many they'd build and the Prelude is the same. If that selling pattern maintains into this year, I'd say it's a success, but it's too early to tell if it's just the initial excitement to have something new and different, or an actual success.
You can be efficient and engaging at the same time. Older Hondas basically made that their entire ethos - sure the D16 in the CRX wasn't fast, but it was a fun engaging engine to operate. The CVT and current powertrain do not do this.
I mean, what you levy as a complaint is their target market, Honda was pretty deliberate in saying they were targeting older buyers with the prelude. Seems weird to make that a point of criticism when that was the goal.
That misses the point of what Honda wanted to do, which is to pitch the hybrid system as a viable "sporty" alternative. Enthusiasts of course would prefer a manual gearbox but that was never the goal with this
The gearbox wouldnt be enough to solve the identity crisis that is this car anyway. It would take a hit in fuel economy which is one of the main selling points of this car. Take that away and now its value prop is even lower. As a GT car it still needs a bit more power. I can actually accept it being the eCVT but the hybrid powertrain is still a let down especially once you look at price
> That misses the point of what Honda wanted to do, which is to pitch the hybrid system as a viable "sporty" alternative.
Yeah I get that, I think that's the miss. The tech showcase here was clearly Honda engineers thinking that they had solved making a hybrid CVT sporty and they just didn't. The sad part is I do think you can make hybrids sporty, you just need to start with designing the powertrain to be sporty, not taking an existing powertrain and making it sporty with electronic trickery.
Dont know if I would say they think they "solved" it, but the primary tech showcase from what I understand was the S+ simulated shifts which I think is a miss for many people. Especially when it makes the powertrain perform worse. But I might be in the minority in this sub that feels simulated shifts are pointless
But I agree, their underlying concept was the whole glider feeling but they repurposed existing parts to do it. At the very least, a modified civic hybrid powertrain to be more sporty would have been more appealing if they are going to bundle it with Type R suspension. Just seems hard to appreciate when everything else feels anemic
I think at some point just about every ICE powered car is going to eventually be a mild hybrid. You can get regenerative braking from the motor in modern ABS modules and just run a P0 hybrid setup (replacing the alternator with a motor/generator). You can have all the accessories running off of battery and then while cruising the ICE engine still trickle charges the electric motor like it does an alternator, but under acceleration that electric motor can then act as a torque booster.
A few mild hybrids follow this configuration, and it obviously as big of a difference maker as a electric drive systems in a full hybrid setup, but it also adds little complexity and weight to current ICE powertrains while enhancing their power delivery and efficiency
Getting going from a stop is the highest consumption part of any drive. That 0-20mph stretch is where you're burning the most fuel. Mild hybrids typically can do 15% or so in terms of improvement in city fuel mileage, which could be 3-5mpg depending on application.
They're especially useful in larger/heavier cars but still useful elsewhere.
Also, the CRZ had an actual button where you could push in the electric assist and get a power boost while accelerating. I think it was a bit quirky in application, but I'd hope honda continues to explore ideas like that rather than abandoning the entire concept.
I was just thinking of what Honda showcasing their current hybrid architecture, but yea a mild hybrid like with a manual like the CRZ would be better from an enthusiast standpoint since you can pair it with a manual.
Mild hybrids are fascinating because they really don't have to add much in terms of weight and complexity. Modern braking systems with a electromechanical brake booster have the means for regenerative braking built in, so a hybrid configuration like the CRZ would be a lot more effective if revisited today
Here’s my stupid Prelude idea: Honda should have given it some more horsepower (pretty much everyone agrees on that) and then moved the engine to the back. Kind of like a Clio V6.
More sellable because it’s now mid/rear engined and better differentiated from the Civic Hybrid. Maybe even give it 4WS like the old Prelude. Probably still going to be pretty efficient but it would now offer something you couldn’t get from any other similarly priced car.
> Here’s my stupid Prelude idea: Honda should have given it some more horsepower (pretty much everyone agrees on that)
I might be in the minority but I don't, I think that the issue with the prelude is less lack of power and more a complete lack of engagement in driving.
I owned a prelude in the early 00s, it wasn't fast, I'd get pulled on by a comparable Accord v6 back in the day. But it was fun to drive with that H22 screaming up to redline and what not.
I don't think every new car needs to run 12s or even 13s for that matter. Something that will do a high 14/low 15 but with a lot of engagement and a great suspension setup would be really welcome imo.
Great statement. The OG prelude wasn't a rocket. It wasn't particularly amazing. The third gen only made like 135-140 hp and the fifth gen made like 190-200. It's smaller body and overall package was the draw.
That's what made it both affordable and great.
It's not what you're proposing, but last year, engineers have spoken about wanting to turbocharge the next-gen 2.0L hybrid.
I'm not sure how it'll do as a performance powertrain given how the current HEV utilises the gas motor.
Bro fuck the history what is Honda doing to innovate with the Prelude *today*? Because as far as we can all tell the new one is just a civic hybrid in a track suit.
More like the Accord just with a headband on. I don’t know about the first gen but by the time the Prelude was killed off, the Accord Coupe was just as fast and handled pretty good too, only lacking a manual.
I read the article. The majority of the piece is about the history of Honda and the Prelude nameplate/various models being forward looking when the current model is more or less just a parts bin special. It’s disingenuous to shield the car from criticism by hiding behind “it was always an Accord coupe” (100% true) while simultaneously intentionally farming the legacy of the more innovative cars. There is nothing wrong with parts bin cars, but the marketing for this car is obnoxious
I 100% agree with you that this car deserves the criticism that it's getting like I said in my top level comment in this post, but being a parts bin special isn't 1 of them. It's that they didn't put the engineering together after putting the parts together. It's based on the Civic hybrid but is slower than the Civic hybrid, for example. It costs $43,000 when the Civic hybrid is $29,000 and the upper trim Sport Touring hybrid is $32,000. And the Civic Type R is $47,000. All of that is valid.
If they had handed the car back over to engineering instead of letting accounting drive the ship and release it in this state, I would be excited to see where this landed.
Your prices are a *little* off. While the Prelude is indeed $43k, the [Civic Hybrid starts at $30,600 for the sedan, while the Sport Touring hybrid sedan is $33,600. The top trim hybrid hatchback is just under $35k.](https://www.caranddriver.com/honda/civic)
Thanks, I went to the Honda website which doesn't include destination, so just to make it easier I'm going to use the prices before destination for all, so that it's coming from Honda and easy to link to. Adjusted Prelude price down to $42,000 so that it's a fair comparison across:
[https://automobiles.honda.com/tools/build-and-price-trimwalk?modelseries=prelude&modelyear=2026](https://automobiles.honda.com/tools/build-and-price-trimwalk?modelseries=prelude&modelyear=2026)
[https://automobiles.honda.com/tools/build-and-price-trimwalk?fromvlp=1&modelseries=civic-sedan&modelyear=2026](https://automobiles.honda.com/tools/build-and-price-trimwalk?fromvlp=1&modelseries=civic-sedan&modelyear=2026)
I mean, I think the Prelude was always 95% parts bin special with 5% "hey lets test this new thing".
The disappointment comes in that the new technology they're testing now is the sport CVT thing and that just kinda sucks lol.
A s Prelude defender, I have to concur.
Hopefully they plan to stuff the Type-R and Si powertrain units in here, or a more potent hybrid system. But the Prelude should've been the car to debut the next-generation hybrid platform and powertrains
Article isnt necessarily wrong about the economics part of it. A key context that's missing is that Honda engineers have said bringing back the Prelude wasn't what they had in mind when they started designing this, it just ended up being that they revived the nameplate. I'm almost certain public perception would be different if it was sold as "Civic Coupe" or a new name entirely.
The other part I've been wondering about was price. Savagegeese said the honda engineers didnt comment on T word pricing. Maybe they didnt want to get into geopolitics for PR, but it also makes me wonder if they were always going to price in the $40k range regardless because of the Prelude badging. Whereas if they had gone with a different name they could price it where it should be in the mid to high 30s
I really like the body style of the car, would it have been that hard to offer two powertrains? Keep the hybrid one cheap and cut costs further by drop the useless type R suspension and then release a halo/top tier whatever one that was just a Si or Type R under the hood?
Maybe it would make no economic sense but it feels like a waste otherwise.
Yeah, the article even mentions how the original Prelude was just a 2 door shrunk down Accord. They could have even just made one that was a continuation of the Accord Sport, so a detuned 250 hp K20 version offered both in automatic and manual. They already have all of the parts there, and by using the detuned version it wouldn't step on the Civic Type R or Integra Type S.
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