When the Honda Prelude was first introduced, it was meant to be a more stylish commuter than the Civic. While its performance didn’t set the world on fire, it was still a perfectly nice little car, as long as the tin worm was kept at bay. With the 1983 model year the Prelude took on more sporting tones, and with the Si model, became a very decent performer.
The Prelude was introduced in 1979. As shown in Laurence Jones’s excellent photo above, it sported attractive, if somewhat bland, lines and was no hot rod, but it added a bit of dash when compared to the Civic, much like the VW Karmann Ghia vs. the Beetle. It was introduced right around the time Honda really took off. The first generation Accord was a huge success, and the Prelude was caught up in the wave. Lots of these cars were sold.
By the early Eighties, it was time for a new version, and the 1983 Prelude was very much a product of its time. The compact, origami-like lines of the 1979-82 model were replaced with smooth lines and an impressive drag coefficient of 0.34. Its clean three-box styling was kept from being anonymous by an attractive sloping hood line with pop-up headlights and full width tail lamps. The new Prelude was now 172.2 inches long, with a 96.5″ wheelbase. Early second-gen models were powered by a 1.8L four cylinder with 110 hp and backed by your choice of a 4-speed automatic or 5-speed manual. The Prelude continued, with the typical Honda refinements here and there, through 1987.
Full disclosure: I don’t know too much about Hondas. I always thought the 1988-91 Preludes were a facelifted second generation model, but in the course of researching for this post, I found that it was an all new model. Well, the third generation Prelude does look an awful lot like its predecessor.
Looks can be deceiving, however, as the wheelbase increased to 101″ and overall length was up by 3.4 inches. The gray trim found on the headlight covers and the upper grille of the 1984-87 was removed for a much smoother look. It was very reminiscent of the Porsche 924/944 and second-gen Mazda RX-7.
The standard model was the 2.0S with a 2.0L 12-valve, SOHC four cylinder version with dual carbs, good for 104 hp and 111 lb ft of torque. For more power and fun, you would want the 2.0Si, which received a fuel injected, DOHC 2.0L four with 135hp and 127 lb. ft of torque. Yes, those numbers don’t sound so hot when compared to today’s 300 hp Accord V6s, but for their time they were very respectable.
1990 models received a mild facelift with clear turn signal lenses and smoother, color-keyed bumpers and side moldings. The seats, door panels and instrument panel were updated as well. I remember seeing a lot of 1990-91 models when new, and they really looked good, especially in chrome yellow. Sadly, they seemed to rust rather quickly, and I hadn’t seen a nice one in years. Last Friday I went up to Iowa City to visit my uncle, and on the way back from dinner we passed this very nice black Si. It’s in really nice shape, and I saw no rust whatsoever. These were really sharp cars! 1991 was the last year for this generation of Prelude, and although the all-new ’92 Prelude was also attractive and even sported four-wheel steering on some models, this ’91 is my favorite.
I came thisclose to buying a Prelude new in ’84 (went for a Civic instead, which gave me 14 years and 144,000 trouble-free miles). A friend from work had the generation you’re profiling here. A great car. Honda at its peak.
Preludes are great cars. Just bought a gen 1 version from 1982 and, while it won’t burn any rubber, it is a peppy, fun ride. These models did get slicker as they went on, though, and Honda really used them to showcase the fun stuff. I still like my gen 1, but the second and third gen models are 80′s/early 90′s Japanese design at its best. Later versions got bulkier and the styling looked less appealing (to my eyes).
Wait, you’re rocking a first gen Prelude? That sir is commendable.
I can’t remember that last time I saw one of those (in Rustachusetts).
Not very common here in the upper Midwest either. It was a CA car that was brought here a decade or so ago but never driven in the winter. The only way to keep Honda’s from this era alive are to never let them see salt. So, a fun ride maybe 7 or so months of the year. The rest of the time, into the garage.
That’s exactly what I do with my California-native Volvo 1800ES.
It’s awesome to reintroduce long-forgotten cars into rusty areas.
No question, my favourite Honda ever and one of the best cars of the 1980s. Problem is that up in Canada (or other places that use salt in winter), these cars have all pretty much melted away. Plus, this generation had one of the only practical 4 wheel steering systems ever installed on a production vehicle.
Quick correction — the second generation actually started for 1983. Here’s a photo.
Both these generations are awesome cars! The third generation, in particular, looks great with its low hood and cowl and big airy windshield.
Thanks for letting me know. Fixed.
A friend of mine has an ’89 Prelude that he bought a few years ago and uses as a daily driver. It has a little bit of rust around the fenders, but the rest of the body and interior are clean. The previous owner didn’t change the air filter much, however, and the engine threw a rod. He found another engine from a wrecker and had it back on the road in no time. I like the second generation ones myself, and considered trading my old Nissan pickup for one years ago.
One of my closest friends had an 83 automatic coupe in high school when we both got our driver’s licenses. I remember it being dead slow….and I mean slowwww. I had a 87 Fiero GT at the time and it seemed like a muscle car in comparison.
Senior year he bought an 88 Prelude Si with four wheel steering. That was a pretty cool car and quite a bit quicker than the 84. Still no match for the Fiero. When I traded the Fiero for an 89 Grand Prix SE 5speed, well then he had the quicker car…mine just had more toys in it and a better highway ride..
I think all the pre 1998 Hondas have dissolved away in this area of the country.
Years ago, I had a 1991 Prelude Si 4WS. Like the photo car, it was black, although mine had the tan interior, the five-speed gearbox, and a dealer accessory spoiler (added by the original owner). I’ve always found this generation very stylish, and they still turn my head when I see one on the street.
The ’91 engine was bored out 2 mm to 2,056 cc, giving it 140 hp, rather than 135 for the injected 1,958 cc version. Since the Prelude was relatively heavy (in the neighborhood of 2,700 lb with 4WS), it wasn’t blazing fast, but it certainly had respectable acceleration. The engine was eager to rev and surprisingly torquey, but it wasn’t outstandingly smooth: it was really getting to the point where balance shafts might have been nice. My big complaint was that even with the five-speed, it was geared like a Spitfire, so it would get awfully buzzy on the interstate. (It probably didn’t do its highway mileage any favors, either.)
It was otherwise a very nice car to drive. Visibility was outstandingly good (how I miss Honda’s low-cowl styling…). The nose slopes very low, but if you crane your neck a bit you can see the end of it from the driver’s seat while belted in, which is uncommon with modern cars. The upholstery and interior finish were first-rate (as well they should have been at that price), the instrument panel and minor controls were thoughtfully designed, and the tinted glass provided exceptionally good solar control (another thing I miss very much). The back seat had very little legroom but adequate headroom, and there was quite decent trunk space. The main downsides were the door-mounted seatbelts (the Prelude didn’t get airbags until the next generation) and the cassette deck, which went to pot in about the same way as in every other Honda my family owned.
The four-wheel steering struck me as something of a parlor trick. I never drove the car aggressively enough to feel much difference on the move, although it cut the turning radius quite a bit and was very handy for parking maneuvers once you got used to it. The first time I tried to parallel park, I promptly scraped one of the front wheels, and it took me a couple of months before I felt comfortable with it. That said, the Prelude handled and rode quite well as long as the shocks were in decent shape. I did make a point to get the alignment done religiously, as the original owner warned me that it would eat tires if you didn’t.
If Honda were able to put that model back into production with airbags, ABS (available on that generation, but not with 4WS, at least here), a better stereo, and slightly more sensible highway gearing, I would seriously consider getting another one.
I never had a Prelude of this generation, but I married a nearly new 88 Accord, so I would imagine that they had similar personalities.
Here is the thing. I owned an 85 GTI for a couple of years when new. It felt like a drivers car. The 86-91 Accord felt more like a very competent boulevard cruiser. Then I picked up a magazine that did a road test on an Accord early in that generation. The numbers surprised me. It did almost everything a smidge better and faster than my GTI. It just went about its business so quietly, you had no idea how good it really drove and handled.
I had a ’89 Accord SEi coupe (purchased new) and it was my favorite car to own. Great style, thoughtful design, excellent handling, and as reliable as a bank vault. I put 50k miles on it annually for four years and enjoyed every mile. Never needed a drop of oil between 5k mile changes. Too bad Honda seems to have lost it’s way.
To some extent, that was my feeling about the Prelude, as well. It was really the opposite of cars like the Mitsubishi Eclipse. The Prelude wasn’t as gentlemanly as the Accord (if it were a person, it would smoke a pack of Gauloises a day), but it was a grownup car, nonetheless.
Honda should do another Prelude! If the new Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ are hits (a big if) they might need a competitor. If there is anything I wouldn’t have predicted in the early ’90s, it’s that this class of car would become extinct — yet somehow, it just about has!
This is my favorite generation of Prelude. Its styling is crisp and clean, and it was quite advanced for its time. I honestly like all of the generations, however, and I’m pretty sure that some designer at Maserati really liked the 1992-1996 model…
When the 1992 styling came out, it seriously reminded me of a 7/8th Cutlass Supreme from 1989 on.
I never had the Prelude, but did have, between 1998-2006, an ’88 Honda Accord and it had very decent driving dynamics and since mine was the LX-I flavor, it had power everything, including sunroof and was the only trim (outside of the SE) to have alloys and fuel injection as mine was the 4 door sedan.
I got it when it had something like 123K or so miles and took it to almost 182K, including being rear ended in August of ’05.
My biggest beef with the car was its size and weight was just enough larger/heavier that it lost some of its punch off the line, despite being 2.0L, but with only 120hp or so (I had the 5spd manual), my smaller ’83 Civic with equally as many miles felt more punchy off the line, even with a mere 67hp, but with a curb weight of 1800# or so.
Knew someone at a former job who had an 86 Prelude in bright red. This WAS in 1996 and rode in it once when he drove me home after we’d had snow as he had AWD if I recall.
I have to agree, the wedge look that Honda went for in the mid to late 80′s were some of their best stylings, outside of the first gen Civic and Accord, closely followed by the clam shell tailgate Civics from 1992-1996.
85-95 Hondas… Crx, Prelude, Integra… Legends!
These used to be everywhere here – although most weren’t NZ-new, but arrived a few years later as used JDM imports. They were very popular with the ‘boy-racer’ crowd, which is possibly why so few seem to be left. Fantastically airy interiors, and that awesome low nose – Honda was so ‘right’ in those years, hard to believe the same company now considers the CRV to be good design…
I’m not sure about in the USA, but when the featured-model Prelude was released here new in 1987, it had 4-wheel-steering – which made for memorable TV/print adverts featuring renowned automotive journalist LJK Setright. The ’87 Prelude was also Wheels magazine’s Car Of The Year (COTY) for 1987.
Owned one of these myself, it was decent on gas but still fun to drive. It was certainly no powerhouse though. Visibility is great with this car, at the time they came out the hoodline was the lowest of any production car and they also had 326 degrees of clear sight around the car due to the slim pillars all around. Clearly they forgot how nice this was for the 92 car, which I also had. Between the sweeping up beltline, large sail panels and rear spoiler backing up the car required practice.
For a long time these cars were among the most frequently stolen cars on the road. I’m not sure if parts for them were in high demand, or they were very easy to steal.
Honda’s due to make something interesting. The S2000′s been gone for, well forever. The sporty hybrid apparently isn’t so sporty, and the topless version of it seems nowhere in sight. Probably waiting for hemlines to go up and the economy to improve.
Honda always seemed to me like a company that has dozens of cars fully designed that just never see the light of day. They probably design for every conceivable contingency. So if the phase of the moon is just right and suddenly economical 3-wheel trucks become all the rage, Honda will be ready with the very best of the lot.
I had a 1985 5-speed carbureted Prelude. I swapped the 13″ wheels and 185-70-13 tires for the 14″ steel wheels and hubcaps from an ’88 and added 195-60-14 Good Year Eagle GT+4′s. The car drove like a go-kart! It did everything. It towed a U-Haul from NJ to Minneapolis, started every day in sub-zero Minneapolis weather. Straightened out curves across the midwest and East coasts. I never minded the lack of power 100hp with carb’s. I drove it for 12 years 208,000mi until a the guy who did a radiator swap introduced a leak into the cooling system and while the temp gauge read normal it melted down the engine on the way to work. At this point it was really uneconomical to repair. I replaced it with a 1991 Prelude Si. I really noticed the 140hp engine of the Si and it handled great but I definitely noticed that it was a bigger car. One other thing I noticed was that it was using a quart of oil every 1,250mi (my old Prelude never used oil between changes). 3 years later it was using a quart of oil at every fuel stop. I investigated an engine change but I was starting to need a different type of car and replaced the Prelude with a Subaru 2.5GT wagon, which I still drive.
Minor complaints, the ’85 Prelude ate an AC compressor every 70,000mi, not a problem with the ’91. The stereo on the ’85 lasted 8 years, then I replaced it with a Sony.
My brother owned an ’88, but it got totaled by someone who ran a stop sign. Both my brother and his fiance walked away from it, but it was the end of his car. He replaced it with a ’92, but I don’t think he was ever happy with it. He kept getting problems with the paint touched-up.
The ’85 had a much more useful trunk than the ’91. I could fit an entire bike in the trunk with just the wheels removed. With the fold-down seat lowered, I could get a bike in by just removing the front wheel. The size of the hatch created by the drop-down seat was much smaller in the ’91, but the chassis was probably stiffer as a result.
I lived in NJ, MN and MA with the Preludes and neither one showed any rust problems. The ’85 had been rust-proofed at the dealer, but I have no idea what treatment the ’91 got.
Oh, the ’85 cost me $12,050 and I had to wait 8 weeks for delivery. That included a $500 “additional profit” for the dealer. Other dealers could deliver faster, but required as much as a $2,500 “additional profit”. I did find one dealer that claimed to charge no premium, but they wanted 16 weeks for delivery and I would have missed driving the car for the whole summer.
Those were by far, my two favorite cars. I’ve longed to buy one of the last generation models, but finances have prevented it and I don’t see it happening any time that will be soon enough to consider the car new-ish.