Dan Neil
Honda has anointed its new hybrid hatchback the Prelude ($44,395, as tested), making it the sixth design to bear the name since 1978. That's cheeky. The fifth-gen (1996-2001) is widely regarded as Peak Prelude -- the coolest-looking, the hardest-punching, the most collectible -- blessed with a bubbly inline-four engine, five-speed manual transmission and a taut, tossable chassis. Lightly used Preludes provided the canvas upon which a generation of street-performance masterpieces were painted just before being confiscated.
Owners of the new car can only color between the lines. Built around a lean-burning (Atkinson cycle) 2.0-liter engine, two-motor hybrid system and front-wheel drive, the new Prelude doesn't present a lot of easy paths to hot-rodding. Certainly nothing about the thick orange power cables under the hood invites tinkering. Anything you might do to make the hybrid quicker and faster will probably make it slower, if not stop altogether.
Chassis-wise, the Prelude comes nicely tuned from the factory. It shares its uprated suspension (front MacPherson strut/rear multi-link, with coilover dampers), anti-roll geometry and Brembo-branded brake calipers with Honda's jumped-up Civic Type R, if not the same leather-hard calibrations.
Street style? Sure. There's plenty of headroom. Currently hosting 19×8.5-inch alloys, the wheel arches are spacious enough to accommodate more heroic wheels and tires. Lowering the ride height would add a badly needed splash of menace. The decklid just about begs for some sort of aftermarket spoiler, like a bare-assed rooster longing for tail feathers.
Otherwise, there's not much for hobbyists to do. In this and other ways the new Prelude does not, and cannot, offer buyers the same kind of passionately bonded relationship as the old cars.
But it does try, the dear thing.
To start with the familiar: The example I drove at the media event near San Diego last week felt impressively solid and soundly made, with door slams resonating with Honda's trademark timbre. The fit and finish were exemplary; and shutlines and panel gaps are precise to aerospace tolerances. Among the hidden details, the roof panel and cantrails (over the doors) are brazed together, eliminating the need for ugly plastic rain gutters to conceal panel joins. Kewl.
The interior -- small, even a bit confining -- is inimitably Honda: serene and understated, quietly purposeful, with tasteful applications of tech and lots of single-purpose switches, including the illuminated centrality of the S+ Shift function button. We'll push that in a moment.
Toyota says the Prelude has four seats. I concede the presence of a set of rear seat belts. Yet I contend the small padded parcel shelf in back qualifies the car as a 2+2 coupe. I'm 6 feet tall and you couldn't get me back there with a whip and chair.
As is the company's way, the surprise-and-delight quotient is high. The bucket seats are unmatched pairs: The driver's seat is firmer, with deep side bolsters to support them against higher cornering g-loads (presumably incurred when alone in the car); the passenger seat is softer, more comfortable with shallower side bolsters.
Note that for Honda to make this feature globally available, it had to source and validate two sets of seats -- one set for the Japan home market, the U.K., Australia and other left-hand-driving countries; and a mirror set for most Western countries. I give that effort full marks.
What only seems familiar: Powering out of a slow corner with the pedal pinned, the car pulling its guts out, stretching for the redline, revs quavering at the upshifts. Checking up before a tight hairpin -- braking late, downshifting with the paddle shifters, turning hard into hairpin corners, the weight of the wheel growing heavy, the little engine piping at full spool. In moments like these the Prelude pushes a lot of the old familiar buttons. A seat of freshly molded Bridgestone summer tires didn't hurt.
But it's all an illusion. Artificial enchantment. Virtualized nostalgia. It may sound like you're ripping revs from gear to gear -- HHHHM, HHHuuum, Hummmmm. But the revs you hear, and therefore the reality you can faithfully report, is completely artificial. The damn thing doesn't even have a transmission, per se.
The glitch in this matrix is called the S+ Shift system. When you push the S+ Shift button, the car switches to one of four personalities, or drive modes (Individual, Comfort, GT, Sport). These modes have limited authority over actual acceleration, suspension damping, cornering limits and steering feedback. But the space between drivers' ears is easier to manipulate.
For example, in Sport mode, the weight in the steering wheel gets heavier but the actual response doesn't change. The electronic power steering system simply reduces the level of assistance. The crisp upshifts you experience inside the cabin are just that -- inside. In most scenarios, the gas engine acts as a generator. With the exception of highway cruising speeds, the e-motors are doing all the work. The revs are but an airy figment in your febrile mind.
I understand that to hardcore Honda-philes the Prelude's artificial flavoring might seem, well, a bit stupid. From the driver's seat, it sounds like I'm the paddle-flipping hero of my own action movie. From the outside it looks like I'm driving Miss Daisy.
At least Honda is acknowledging the emotional vacancy left from the absence of pistons, flame and fuel, and making an effort to fill it. In its way the Prelude stubs its toe on an ancient dilemma: How do we know what is real and what isn't? And if we can't tell the difference, is the difference irrelevant?
The glitch in the Prelude's matrix is there that there is no glitch.
2026 Honda Prelude
Price, as tested: $44,395
Powertrain: Series-parallel hybrid-gas electric, 2.0-liter inline-four gas engine (141 hp @ 6,000 rpm/134 lb-ft at 4,500 rpm), two-motor hybrid system; 1-kWh lithium-ion battery pack; front-wheel drive
System power/torque: 200 hp/232 lb-ft
Length/wheelbase/width/height: 178.4/102.6/74.0/53.4 inches
Curb weight: 3,261 pounds
0-60 mph: 8 seconds (est.)
EPA fuel economy: 46/41/44 mpg, city/highway/combined
Cargo capacity: 15.1 cubic feet
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 28, 2026 17:40 ET (22:40 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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