The Honda Prelude Is a Prius Pretending To Be a Sports Coupe

The new Toyota Prius is a fantastic-looking, slightly kooky hatchback. It’s not a sports car, and no one would mistake it for one. It’s a comfortable, reliable, stylish Japanese hybrid that also happens to look good—all without raising the price. The Prius remains inexpensive, starting at $29,485, and it does everything you want from a Prius: superb fuel economy, strong environmental credentials, and excellent range. It just happens to also look great.I mention all this because the Prius succeeds in every way that the Prelude does not.The Prelude is a name that Honda has revived from a legendary series of sports coupes. The originals came in manuals and automatics. They looked great. They drove well. They were an inexpensive way to get reliable, sporty fun. But, with the new Prelude, Honda has — for some reason — made something that not only looks quite similar to the Prius but functions in many of the same ways.The new Prelude uses an e-CVT gearbox system, which isn’t actually a CVT but is functionally a plug-in hybrid in which electric motors power the wheels most of the time. When you rev the engine, it makes noises — but it doesn’t actually correlate to the power delivery. Similarly, when you activate S+ mode and pull the paddle shifters behind the steering wheel, it makes satisfying downshift sounds and shifts very quickly, but it’s not actually shifting. It’s just matching the engine revs to sound like gear changes would if they were happening. Electric motors are still driving the wheels.The engine’s power figure is largely irrelevant, because unless you’re on the highway, it never directly powers the wheels—which makes for superb fuel economy. Honda has made a fabulous Prius competitor here, aside from its high price tag, sporty badge, impractical read-seats, and assortment of thrown on performance parts. Putting large Brembo brakes on this car is like painting your bicycle red and saying its Ducati — it’s pointless, embarrassing expense.And expense is the true problem here. The Prius starts at under $30,000. The Prelude starts at $43,195. That’s a $13,000 premium over the Civic Si, which has the same 200 horsepower, doesn’t look much worse, and offers better rear-seat comfort. And why would anyone buy this car over more powerful sports coupes — from Ford, BMW, and more — which will drive far better too?In the end, this isn’t a sports car. It’s basically a new version of the Peugeot RCZ or Honda’s own CR-Z: cars that look like sports cars but are really just normal hatchbacks, compromising on practicality while costing more. They feel inauthentic. If this car was fully electric, rear-wheel drive, and had 600 horsepower—and was this price—that could have worked. Not commercially of course, but nor will this, and at least that hypothetical version wouldn’t have been embarrassing. Here’s hoping they can fix some of this with a Prelude Type R.

The Honda Prelude Is a Prius Pretending To Be a Sports Coupe

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