Twenty-five years after the last Honda Prelude was sold, the two-door coupe is back in 2026, reimagined as a modern-day hybrid with two electric motors.
It’s built in Japan, at Honda’s Yorii plant in Saitama Prefecture, and comes in just one spec priced from $65,000 drive-away. All you have to do is choose your favourite colour: Crystal Black, Racing Blue, Rallye Red, Moonlit White or Meteorite Gray. There’s a couple of promo offers on 2026-build cars, so check them out.
Otherwise, add-ons include a “style pack” with front and rear spoilers, carpet mats and illuminated door sills for $2505.
What’s it like?
Totally satisfying and utterly gorgeous, the sweeping fastback roofline and rear horizontal light bar hinting at Porsche, while voluptuous curves up front evoke Ferrari Roma.
Even the fuel flap feels nice to open and close — and the indicator stalk has a nice click when you engage it.
Lift the tailgate and there’s more boot space than you’d imagine, expanding from 264 litres to 663/760 litres with rear seats down, depending on whether you load to the window or roof.
I’d take it to Ikea.
The interior is beautifully finished, including a thick, leather-wrapped flat-bottom steering wheel with blue stitching.
Fit-out is instantly recognisable from other current Honda models.
So, essentially, a clean, horizontal layout with push-button gear shifter, honeycomb mesh on dashboard air vents and tactile switchgear for obvious things like temperature, air flow and audio volume, as well as a 9-inch touchscreen that’s easy to use and a 10.2-inch LED colour driver information interface that lets you keep an eye on, among other things, music, phone, fuel consumption and navigation.
Oh, the sound system is eight-speaker Bose.
You also get wireless charging, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Google Built-In and a three-year subscription to Honda Connect, which includes geofencing alert, automatic collision detection and an emergency call button.
Front seats look suitably sporty in two-tone navy blue and white leather with perforated houndstooth pattern, integrated head restraints and three-step heating (low, medium and high), but the rear two are almost an afterthought in drab black fabric.
Maybe just throw your overnight bags back here.
Build-wise, the doors are exceptionally wide with flush handles, and there’s some serious chassis hardware from the Civic Type R, including the dual-axis strut front suspension, Brembo brakes and adaptive dampers, which have had a bespoke Prelude tune. The set-up also brings the Type R’s wide front and rear tracks, but in every other respect, the Prelude is more a sporty grand tourer.
The drive?
Unflappable, with reassuring steering and good acceleration. It’s a natural on wriggly roads in the Hills.
Everything feels just right.
The Prelude is front-wheel drive, with an electronic continuously variable transmission and the same 2.0-litre, two-motor hybrid system found in Honda’s Civic, Accord, CR-V and ZR-V hybrid models — though the set-up isn’t identical in every vehicle.
It has three drive modes — Normal, Sport and GT (or four, if you count Individual, which lets you tailor steering, powertrain response, suspension and engine sound) — to produce total outputs of 135kW/315Nm and 8.2-second 0-100km/h time.
For freeway driving, I keep it in GT.
I expect the Prelude to start up with a thunderclap. Instead, it pulls away on electric power, with the petrol engine kicking in down the road and transitioning between EV, hybrid and engine propulsion, depending on driving conditions.
Of course, there’s a G-Meter and S+Shift, which you activate by pressing a large button on the centre console for a simulated eight-speed transmission experience.
No thanks.
Otherwise, the ride is relatively quiet, thanks largely to active noise cancellation in the cabin.
My fuel consumption over a week of city and highway driving is 4.9 litres/100km, which is pretty close to Honda’s claimed 4.3L/100km.
Is it safe?
The Prelude has not been rated by Euro NCAP or ANCAP — and as a niche, low-volume sports coupe, it may never happen.
It does, however, come with a full suite of Honda Sensing features, including 10 airbags, a well-calibrated ADAS that doesn’t intrude on driving, adaptive driving beam, a post-collision braking system and, in addition to vehicle stability assist, an “agile handling assist system” which lightly applies brakes to individual wheels during cornering to improve steering response and accuracy.
Warranty and servicing
The Prelude comes with Honda’s five-year unlimited-kilometre warranty, five years of roadside assistance and five years of capped-price servicing (every 12 months/10,000km), costing $279 each time. The hybrid battery module has an eight-year warranty.
How it started
+ First generation, 1978: Honda Prelude entered the market as a two-door coupe with either a five-speed manual gearbox or an early two-speed “Hondamatic” transmission — Honda’s own semi-automatic gearbox — and, depending on market, either a 1.6-litre or 1.8-litre four-cylinder engine as a challenger to the Toyota Celica and American pony cars, like the Ford Mustang. It had chrome bumpers, polished stainless steel window surrounds and an electric sunroof — also called a moonroof — with borrowed suspension, brakes and engine from the Honda Accord.
+ Second generation, 1982: Pop-up headlights and a bigger, 2.0-litre sports injected (Si) model was included in the line-up, delivering 0-99km/h in approximately 9 seconds. New tech included optional Honda’s new anti-lock brakes, the forerunner to ABS, as well as creature comforts like electric windows and velour seats.
+ Third generation, 1987: Features included the world’s first mechanical four-wheel steering system in a mass-production car, with a face-lifted version revealed in Japan in 1989, along with the Prelude INX.
+ Fourth generation, 1991: Prelude added a VTEC engine, larger brakes, electric steering — and ditched the pop-up headlights.
+ Fifth generation, 1996: Honda’s active torque vector transfer system automatically distributed more of the engine’s power to the outside front wheel when accelerating in a turn and, as with previous iterations, regional variations saw different countries having different engines and trims.
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