Big Hondas are odd beasts, sometimes. Scratch that, they always are. And that’s a bit of an issue for yours truly. I like an oddball as much (if not more than) the next car nerd, but I just don’t get big Hondas. I know, I know, I’m writing this on a website read mostly by folks based in North America, where large Hondas have been adopted and are now about as mainstream as Oldsmobiles were back in the day. But elsewhere around the world, including in Japan, big Hondas are very hit and miss, and mostly the latter.
Case in point: the last Prelude. The JDM version was launched in late 1996 and sold until the middle of 2001, though production actually stopped in September 2000. Right there, you know something went awry. No carmaker wants to have nine months’ worth of inventory of anything lying about. Yet that’s exactly what happened to Honda with the final Prelude. They sold a shade under 14,000 in Japan in those four and a half years – a major dud.
But you know what? I kind of like this one. Older Preludes don’t really get my juices flowing. Not to say that I wouldn’t photograph one if I saw it – especially the first generation, which is my second favourite of the bunch. But on the rare occasion where I see one of these pass by in the street, it never fails to catch my gaze.
It even has a colourful interior and seats that aren’t entirely made of doily-covered grey velour. I mean really, this is outstanding for a JDM car of this class and era!
I’m not going to go into specifics about this Prelude’s engine or anything of the sort – this has all been covered fully and expertly by Brendan Saur in his take on this car, which you should read immediately after you’ve finished the present post. This is just an excuse for me to muse about the fact that Hondas aren’t very popular here, yet some looked really good. Alas, in the Venn diagram depicting those two categories, the overlap is very small and does not include the fifth-gen Prelude, which is located in the majority “turkey” side of the lookers.
Still damn handsome, though. Pass the cranberry sauce. ‘
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 2001 Honda Prelude – The Postlude Of The Flagship Sports Coupe, by Brendan Saur
CC Outtake: 2001 Honda Prelude – Kombustion, by PN
This is my favourite Prelude. This one has the JDM goodness of a rear wiper.
If only it was RWD and peered by a S2000 engine.
Here’s a question: Were ANY cars in this class popular in Japan by this point? The JDM sales of the later FWD Celica and Curren were pretty dismal, the Nissan Silvia expired before the Prelude did, the Corolla/Sprinter coupes died in mid-2000, and all the bigger GTs were either already gone or running out the clock.
I’ve always been a fan of these. To my eyes, this was Honda’s take on the PLC, my favorite type of car. I was sad to see it go away.
Now ALL Honda coupes are gone. 😢
I’m glad I got my [not so] little Civic Coupe back in 2016 while I had the chance.
Well said, I love all my Honda coupes. I owned an RSX type S, an S2000 and currently still have an 2012 civic SI coupe. They’re soo much better than their larger, heavier, 4 door counter parts. And look a lot sharper in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong the Civic R is a great car and I don’t mind it’s looks albeit controversial, but if I want something with 4 doors I’d rather have an STI or EVO, which I do :). But seriously no more Honda coupes really sucks. Just the same reason I can’t get onboard with the new Integra.
For me these rank as the second most desirable Prelude, peak Prelude will always be an ’87 Prelude Si, perhaps in white or that lighter blue color, both with the charcoal interior. The second generation seemed to be peak Prelude, they were everywhere in SoCal at the time and seemed to embody all of the Honda virtues including that super thick and soft Honda Velour seat fabric.
These seem a very good “freshening” and modernizing of that exterior (beyond the 3rd gen which did a good job but started to look at wee bit decontented at times).
Jimmy’s list of Prelude preference:
2nd gen
5th gen
3rd gen
1st gen (for the kitsch and that delightful gauge within a gauge)
(intentional space here)
4th gen
That red interior is great, btw, especially with the dashboard matching. Very unusual for a Honda, it looks great.
I had a third-gen car for a while and I don’t think it was de-contented. Granted, I had a top-spec Si 4WS, but the material quality was consistently high, even in small details, which was more than just having all the toys. You paid for it too, because it was also an expensive car when it was new: I think the original MSRP was around $17,500, which is equivalent to almost $39K adjusted for inflation.
Did the US market get the seats with leather bolsters and velour centers? It’s very cool, even if the cloth pattern is decidedly of a different era.
I sure wish the Japanese market’s notchback rear wipers would come over here, too. I’ve never had a car that couldn’t have used a rear wiper, though only the current two have it.
This Prelude never did anything for me. I felt it was a major disappointment after the previous generation, as though they had boiled all the interesting part of the style off and kept the dregs. Just a coupe. I wonder if the design was just too plain to work in Japan? And yet AUWM makes a good point; this was a contracting market segment anyway, but 14,000 sold in four and a half years – ouch!
The fourth gen’s my favourite, then 3,2,5,1.
The Prelude was hopelessly muddled in this period.
During its 1980s heyday, the model had a clearly stratified place in the Honda lineup: Bigger than a Civic, smaller than an Accord, and with more style and technology than either.
But by the late 1990s? You had the Civic coupe and Accord coupe, which offered more room, better looks, AND cost less. You had the Acura Integra, which picked up the Prelude’s aspirational “premium sport coupe” mantle…and also had a handy liftback and a more prestigious badge on the hood. This generation of Prelude required premium fuel, and the interesting tech of the previous generations (i.e., four-wheel steering) was gone. What was the appeal of this car at all?
Ah yes, my first new car and we’re right about 23 years from the day I bought it. A friend who worked for Microsoft was trading in his 1994 Accord coupe and buying a 3-Series BMW. We found a dealer who’d take my then 5-year-old and well-worn Capri XR2 and let me buy his Accord. He told me ‘you’ll be won over finally having a car where the stupid stuff doesn’t break’ and he was right. Ended up getting a big promotion at work and was starting to be smitten with the Prelude rear-end’s resemblance to both the Gen 2 model (after the ‘acquired taste’ of Gen 4) as well as the Nissan Skyline. Was not a fan of that generation of Accord coupe and had zero use for a back seat other than to keep insurance low. Used examples were so close to the price of new I went that route. Took a ride in an automatic-equipped version and was instantly convinced the 5-speed was the only way to go. That was really the only choice other than color. Sunroof, CD and all the other stuff were present. Leather would’ve been OK but the black cloth interior worked just fine. I swapped out the rims and had the windows tinted – but no other craziness.
I’d have liked a CD changer, and it always bugged me that the Accord has trunk release on the remote, but the Prelude was fully-manual; and the Accord seat had height adjustment. Preludes had a rep for smooth but not quick, but VTEC going standard across the line cured that – when the tach hit right about 5000 the sound was awesome. The smooth handling remained so and it was about the best balance of ride vs. handling I’d ever owned.
In late 2005 the timing belt tensioner went, which meant an early timing belt job so I was paid off and had bought about the biggest repair that regular maintenance entailed.. If it weren’t for another hefty raise at the office allowing me to get a PRHT Miata, I might STILL be driving that Prelude. Great automobile.
Two things I would never call a Prelude are Big or Handsome
And a Plymouthroadrunner is big and not handsome
I did and do like the 5th gen the best. My issue with it has always been that ugly mug. Honda did a good job making the Accord front ends look good during this period, but for some reason they just missed it with this Prelude.
That said, the ’99 – ’03 Accord coupe rear end was equally appallingly ugly (NSX inspired or otherwise). I always thought they should have put the Prelude tail end on the Accord coupe and it would have been perfect.