Honda Prelude: a worthy return for the distinctive coupé?

Honda isn’t doing particularly well in the UK at the moment. Its UK market share fell by nearly 25% in 2025 compared to 2024 (only four other volume brands saw larger falls).

This trend seems to be continuing in 2026, with Honda registering nearly 46% fewer cars in January 2026 (882 cars) compared to the same period last year (1,624 cars).

The Japanese brand will be hoping its plan to introduce more EVs to its range in 2026 will help address this (its only current EV is the e:Ny1 SUV), but it’s also launched another, rather unusual, car: the Prelude.

Last available to buy new 25 years ago, the Prelude is, Like most other Honda cars, a full hybrid. And, like past Prelude models, it’s a coupé.

The Prelude uses the same hybrid system as the current Honda Civic and is available in just a single trim. It has lots of equipment as standard, including Honda’s ‘Sensing’ safety package, a leather steering wheel, leather seats, a digital instrument display, dual-zone climate control and a wireless smartphone charger.

The Prelude’s only real rivals are the BMW 2 Series Coupé and the Mazda MX-5 RF. But neither is available in full hybrid form. Does this make the Prelude worth considering? I’ve performed an initial test drive to find out.

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Honda Prelude: key manufacturer specs

Driving characteristics

The Prelude has up to 184hp. This is enough to allow for impressive acceleration in most scenarios. Power is only lacking at motorway speeds, but even then you’ll rarely be in a situation where you need more power.

Four different driving modes are available: Comfort (for relaxed driving), GT (for normal driving), Sport (for the fastest acceleration) and Individual (which allows the driver to adjust the car’s settings to their personal requirements). I preferred the Individual mode due to the sheer number of adjustment options available.

If you dial back the power, the Prelude is a very smooth and cultured car to drive, and power is delivered consistently and quickly, especially when the Prelude uses its hybrid system. You’ll find that in most situations the hybrid system will power the car, which can make the Prelude very frugal on petrol.

The Prelude’s Brembo brakes work impressively well to stop the car and I found brake pedal is easy to use. The metal paddles behind the steering wheel let you set different levels of regenerative braking and this system also works well to slow the car down.

These paddles also work to simulate gear changes when the S+ Shift system is activated. It imitates an eight-speed automatic gearbox and the Prelude is the first Honda model to use this system. It responds well to when you want to change gear, although it’s more suited to the GT and Sport driving modes. If you choose not to use the S+ Shift system, the gearbox works well and rarely revs the Prelude’s engine excessively.

While the Prelude can sometimes feel larger than it is when driving around corners, you can corner precisely at elevated speeds. This is aided by the steering system, which is quite heavy in the GT and Sport driving modes, especially when driving on country roads. It’s much lighter in Comfort mode and becomes lighter in all modes when driving in town. Precision is generally good and it's also very direct so you get a good feel for how the car will react to steering inputs.

The Prelude has suspension technology that’s derived from the final-generation Civic Type R and also has adaptive dampers. For a car with a performance focus, I thought it was generally comfortable, although you’ll feel larger bumps and road undulations in the cabin. Note that in the Comfort driving mode, the suspension is much softer than in the GT and Sport driving modes.

In most situations, the Prelude is quiet. Road noise becomes more prominent at speed and wind noise is also noticeable. The engine can also be noisy when revved hard although this can be deliberate, especially if you use the S+ Shift system.

Overall visibility is poor. I found it hard to judge where the ends of the Prelude are, while very wide rear roof pillars obstruct your view to the sides of the car. The sharply angled rear windscreen makes it hard to see obstacles below you to the rear.

Interior space and overall quality

Up front, there’s plenty of legroom for you to get comfortable. However, headroom is more limited and taller people may find it hard to sit comfortably in the Prelude (I’m 6ft 2in tall and there was around an inch of headroom left above me with the driver’s seat in its lowest position). The front passenger seat isn’t height-adjustable, as with many other current Honda models.

The rear seats are only suitable for smaller passengers as both headroom and legroom are limited. And as the car’s large rear windscreen extends over the rear cabin, it could get quite hot if you sit in the back on sunny days.

The Prelude is mostly built well, although the centre console often rattled during my test drive. While this rarely gets annoying, it does detract from the overall feel of quality. This could also be said for some of the interior materials, such as the hard plastics which make up the lower part of the dashboard and the basic-feeling headlining. However, the door trims, sun visors and upper dashboard are much softer to touch, while the synthetic leather area in the centre of the dashboard also looks attractive.

Like many sports cars, the Prelude sits low to the ground so can be hard to get in and out of. This is especially true for the rear seats, as there isn't much space to enter and exit the rear cabin. And while the doors open a long way, you have to use pop-out handles to open them, which could be an issue for people with limited dexterity.

The driver’s seat is subtly different to the front passenger seat, as, according to Honda, the base of the passenger seat is softer and less supportive. However, I didn't notice any difference between the two. While the fixed headrests may not reach high enough for taller people, the seats are very supportive and generally comfortable even if they lack some adjustment options (such as an extending base) and the material they’re made out of is quite stiff.

The Prelude’s ‘liftback’ boot makes it easier to load luggage than a saloon as the whole rear windscreen panel can be raised. While it’s quite shallow and has a large step from the rear of the car to the boot floor, it’s a fair size for a coupé. The rear seats can be folded asymmetrically, sit near-flat when retracted and reveal a much larger loading area.

However, I found it wasn’t always easy to fold and replace the rear seats as you either have to reach far into the car from the boot or fold the seats through the cabin. Their material is also quite brittle and may not prove to be very durable if you regularly fold and replace the seats. The luggage cover also felt quite cheap.

Note that the Prelude can’t tow, which is surprising as the Civic it’s based on has a 750kg braked towing capacity.

Tech and safety equipment

Most of the Prelude’s interior controls and displays are taken from the Civic, which is generally a good thing.

You get physical climate controls, a volume dial and additional buttons to control the touchscreen, all of which are very easy to use. Just be aware that the touchscreen systems of some rival brands are less dated in terms of design, while the instrument display layout can’t be customised much (a rev counter appears in place of the power meter when the S+ Shift system is used).

The Prelude is fitted with lots of safety equipment, including 10 airbags, blind spot monitors, collision warning technology, post-collision braking, a driver attention monitoring system, a cross traffic monitor and adaptive cruise control.

Most of the car’s legally mandated safety technology worked well during my test drive, although as our car lab has seen with other Honda cars, the traffic sign recognition system isn’t always accurate and can be irritating when you drive at the correct speed limit and the system thinks that a different speed limit applies.

Final thoughts

We’ll reserve final judgement on the Prelude until we lab test it, but based on my experience it offers the potential for reduced running costs when compared to a petrol coupé (especially when driven in town). It's also as dynamically impressive to drive as the Civic it’s based on.

It also offers adequate practicality for a coupé and is generally easy to drive, although at higher speeds it could be more powerful. Honda says that they don’t know if a more powerful Type R version will be developed by the brand and that the Prelude, while acting as Honda’s ‘halo’ model in Europe, isn’t intended to be a direct replacement for the Civic Type R (which was removed from sale in Europe last year).

The Prelude is a unique proposition, and will likely remain a rare sight on UK roads as Honda only expects to sell around 900 Prelude cars in the UK over the next two years.

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