Honda Prelude Review & Prices

The Honda Prelude is sporty, comfortable and fun-to-drive coupe with an efficient hybrid engine, but the rear seats are too small to be useful, and it could do with a more exciting engine under the bonnet.

If you think you’ve heard the name ‘Prelude’ before, you’d be right. The last model bowed in 2001, but now the four-seater coupe is back, based on the excellent Civic hatchback. It’s like the big, baggy skater jeans which went out of style in the 2000s, before making a comeback in recent years.

The thing is, there aren’t many cars to compare the Prelude against. The BMW 2 Series is around the same price, but the Ford Mustang is far more expensive. The Toyota GR86 and Audi TT are no longer on sale, while the Mazda MX-5 RF is a two-seater.

Unlike the rear-wheel drive BMW, the Honda is front-wheel drive - and hybrid-powered. That may not sound very sporty, but the Prelude is more closely-related to the outstanding Honda Civic Type R hot hatch than it is the plain-Jane Civic, and you can tell from behind the wheel.

Honda Prelude: facts and figures

Engine: 2.0-litre, inline four-cylinder petrol, hybrid
Drivetrain: CVT automatic transmission with simulated gear shifts, front-wheel drive
Horsepower: 184hp
0-60mph: 8.2 seconds
Top speed: 117mph
Efficiency: 54.3mpg

There are a load of suspension bits and pieces borrowed from the Type R, which combined with the Prelude’s short wheelbase means it feels notably grippy and agile when chucking it into corners on a country lane. It’s remarkably smooth on a bumpy stretch of road, too.

That comfort extends to town driving, where the Prelude’s adaptive suspension does a great job of absorbing bumps and pot holes at lower speeds. Being a hybrid, you have extra pep away from the lights thanks to the electric motor.

Visibility is good over the bonnet, but terrible over the shoulder, which hampers you at junctions or when pulling onto the motorway. Speaking of which, it’s just as comfortable when cruising at higher speeds, too.

It’s a shame the 2.0-litre hybrid engine can’t match the excitement (and performance) levels the chassis can, with a modest 180hp and a CVT automatic transmission for a low top speed of 117mph. There are quirky simulated gearshifts, a-la Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, which uses the physical engine to trick you into thinking you’re using a traditional gearbox.

The Prelude certainly looks sporty, with a sleek silhouette and a particularly low roofline, but it’s somewhat awkward at certain angles. The front end is a bit too busy; pointy between the slim headlights, while the rear looks bulbous if you’re standing in the wrong place.

At least the cabin looks great, with a sporty two-tone colour theme, soft-touch plastics higher up and a row of physical controls for the air con and heater. Honda has been a bit too liberal with the gloss black, scratch-prone plastics in places, though, and the gear selector is unintuitive.

Step down into the low-slung seats and you’ll find the Prelude’s interior feels properly sporty. There’s lots of adjustment, but extra-tall drivers might feel your hair ruffling the roof. The rear seats are awfully cramped, and the 264-litre boot is massively behind the BMW 2 Series - as well as most small hatchbacks.

Verdict:

The Prelude is an odd car to try to recommend. It’s excellent in some ways, more comfortable than a BMW 2 Series and far more practical than a Mazda MX-5 (but that isn’t hard). It’s not the seriously sporty, ‘Civic Type R coupe’ you might expect it to be, that being said.

Have a look at the latest Honda Prelude deals on Carwow, or Prelude lease deals instead. There are used Honda Preludes to choose from as well as other used Hondas for sale through our trusted dealer network. Remember, Carwow can help you sell your current car, too.

There’s only one trim level for the Honda Prelude, starting at almost £40,000 in the sole Advance version. With all of the options chosen that’ll rise to about £45,000 - which is far more expensive than the mechanically-similar Civic hatchback. A BMW 2 Series starts at £39,000, and it’s arguably the more desirable car with a far posher badge.

It may be pricey, but the Prelude is well-equipped as standard with heated front seats, keyless entry-and-go, wireless phone charging, adaptive LED headlights, Bose surround sound and adaptive cruise control.

It’s easy and fun to drive, but the hybrid engine feels lacklustre compared to the sporty steering

In town

In town the Prelude is almost as easy to drive as the mechanically-similar Honda Civic. The electric motor means the Prelude is nippy when pulling away from traffic lights. The darty steering helps when making quick lane changes or taking tight corners.

Even with its sporty suspension the Prelude is remarkably comfortable and composed on broken stretches of speedbump-laden tarmac. The swoopy roofline and low seating position get in the way when manoeuvring, however, with terrible over-the-shoulder visibility.

Fortunately, standard-fit parking sensors and a rear-view camera help take some of the strain out of parking.

On the motorway

The Prelude is just as comfortable on the motorway, with the single-speed gearbox making for smooth acceleration up to the national speed limit - while the car remains quiet and composed once you reach cruising speeds.

Again, over-the-shoulder visibility doesn’t help when making lane changes, but at least blind-spot assistance and cross-traffic monitoring add a little peace of mind on the go.

On a twisty road

It may not be an out-and-out sports car, but the Prelude more than handles its own when the going gets twisty. In fact, thanks to shared suspension components with the brilliant Honda Civic Type R, the two-door coupe certainly feels sportier than you might expect from a ‘non-performance’ model.

If you really wring its neck then the Honda begins to show its soft side, losing a touch of composure through fast corners and wallowing about a touch over bumpy lanes, but it’s plenty capable for a sensible hybrid.

It’s comfortable up front but the Prelude’s back seats are better off as extra cargo space

The front is where it’s at in the Prelude, because - perhaps unsurprisingly - this sleek, low-slung coupe offers a suitably sporty driving position. There’s a lot of adjustment to the seats and steering wheel, allowing you to get properly close to the floor and do your best race driver impression on the daily commute.

You won’t find a great deal of space for bits and bobs in the cabin, but the door bins are large enough to take a large water bottle, there’s a phone charging pad in front of the gear selector, a pair of cup holders and a small glovebox for the passenger.

Annoyingly, there aren’t ISOFIX anchor points in the front seat, which feels like an oversight in a car with so little rear space.

Space in the back seats

It may be a four-seater, but the Prelude’s back seats are really there for emergencies only, to carry extra shopping around or for show, really. Headroom, legroom and foot space under the front seats are all very poor, and the door openings to fit a child seat into either ISOFIX anchor point is comically small.

Boot space

At just 264 litres in volume, the boot is really quite small in the Prelude. This is a long way down on space compared to the BMW 2 Series (390 litres) and Ford Mustang (400 litres).

Fortunately, the Honda’s rear seats are very easy to fold away from the boot, and considering how useless they are for carrying occupants, you’re better off treating the Prelude as a two-seater with a 760-litre load space which can take deeper loads.

The parcel shelf easily folds away; thin and durable enough to chuck underneath anything you put in the boot without getting in the way.

A clear cabin layout and easy-to-use switchgear impress, but material quality is hit-or-miss

It may be mechanically similar to the Honda Civic, but the Prelude’s handsome cabin doesn’t feel quite as solid as its more practical counterpart. That’s unfortunate, especially at this pricepoint.

The upper dashboard is pleasantly soft and squidgy to the touch, with a refreshingly ‘normal’ design compared to some of the overtly minimal, screen-heavy fare in other new cars (we’re looking at you Audi, Tesla and BYD).

The 9.0-inch infotainment screen and 10.2-inch driver displays are reasonably sized without feeling small, but it’s a shame the graphics and interface aren’t quite as snappy as in the BMW 2 Series or Ford Mustang.

The driver instrumentation is highly customisable through the steering wheel, though it’s a bit of a convoluted process, and only Apple CarPlay is wireless, with Android Auto users relegated to using a cable for phone mirroring.

Fortunately, you don’t need to prod at the screen too much because Honda has included a row of easy-to-reach-and-use physical climate controls beneath the infotainment, which are far more intuitive than touchscreen-only malarkey.

What isn’t very easy to use is the gear selector, which is needlessly complicated and annoying to wrap your head around. Reverse is all too easy to engage without much thought.

The air vents, steering wheel controls and switchgear all feel suitably premium, but it’s a shame the nice dash-top is overshadowed by the sheer amount of scratchable gloss black trim on the centre console and hard plastics around the lower cabin.

Unfortunately, the Prelude we tested already began to show signs of wear and stretching on the seat bolster, while the centre console felt a bit too creaky and wobbly compared to other Honda models, which doesn’t inspire confidence in long-term durability.

We managed to achieve 41mpg in our real-world testing of the Prelude over a variety of roads, which is decent for a sporty coupe but some way down on Honda’s claimed 54.3mpg figure. If you spend the majority of your time in town then you’ll get closer to 50mpg, but on motorways and B-roads the 2.0-litre engine is leant on more than the electric motor.

The Prelude’s first-year road tax isn’t as low as in plug-in hybrid models, sitting in a middling band due to CO2 emissions of 117g/km. The Honda is also subject to the luxury car tax between years two-to-six as a result of its high list price, starting at over £40,000.

Company car drivers are better off looking at PHEV or electric options instead - even if there aren’t many sporty options to choose from - because the Prelude doesn’t sit in a low Benefit in Kind band.

The Honda Prelude is too niche a model to have been tested by safety experts Euro NCAP, but being mechanically similar to the Honda Civic - which has a full five-star rating - you can jump into a Prelude with relative peace of mind.

All Preludes feature blind sport assist, lane keep assist, automatic emergency braking, a pair of ISOFIX child seat anchors in the back and a driver attention monitor as standard.

*warranty is extended yearly with annual dealer servicing, up to eight years/100,000 miles

The Prelude doesn’t come with a particularly impressive warranty as standard; the industry-norm three-year, 60,000-mile affair, but this can be extended up to eight years and 100,000 miles so long as you keep up yearly servicing at an approved garage.

This is far more impressive than BMW or Ford, both of which will only cover up to three years, while Toyota and Lexus still lead the way with up to ten years of coverage…though neither produces a sporty coupe anymore.