The Prelude is back! Tell me all about it right away...
Woah, hold your hybridized horses there. We may have driven the new Honda Prelude, but we were only allowed three laps of Thruxton for a quick taste of what this reborn two-door coupe. Don’t expect this to be the definitive verdict.
Ah, so was this just a prototype?
The car you see in these rather rushed images from Honda is the exact car we drove. It’s a pre-production Prelude, but Honda bosses told us it was “99%” faithful to the one you’ll be able to buy in the near future.
Those same Honda folk were also keen to point out we were only at Thruxton for its relative proximity to Goodwood, not because the new Prelude will be a lightweight, stripped-out track toy. Shame.
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This car was whipped out of the Festival of Speed under the cover of darkness on Thursday night and needed to be back in the Duke’s garden for a run up the hill on Saturday morning, so while Thruxton may be the fastest race circuit in the UK, we weren’t out to set any records during this very short stint.
What sort of VTEC wizardry is under the hood?
Ah, well...of course, we already knew the new Prelude was going to be a hybrid, and we always expected it to use a similar powertrain to the e:HEV setup in the Civic. In fact, it’s pretty much exactly the same.
It’s a 2.0-liter gasoline four-cylinder engine that only drives the wheels when cruising at highway speeds. The rest of the time, it’s running at more efficient revs per minute and is powering a generator motor that converts the engine’s output into electricity, and either uses it to charge a small battery or to power a second electric motor that drives the wheels.
The engine can also turn completely off, leaving just the battery to propel the Prelude, but that’ll only be for a short while because in the Civic at least, it’s a 1.05kWh tiddler.
The Prelude’s chief engineer Tomoyuki Yamagami confirmed to Top Gear that the power figure is the same as in the Civic, so you’re looking at 181hp being sent to the front wheels.
Sounds complicated, but in reality, it’s a smooth system and one that we like in the Civic very much. Would be nice if the Prelude still came with a 2.2-liter, though.
It’s a coupe. Is there anything that points to it being a little bit sporty?
Well, it certainly looks rather sleek. Honda claims to have taken inspiration from gliders for the form, although if you can see the “linear togetherness of an acrobatic flight” in the Prelude, then you’re better at translating design-speak than we are.
Still, it’s a neat car with a shorter wheelbase than a Civic and a track that’s about as wide as the Civic Type R’s. Narrower tires, of course.
It weighs around 1,500kg and also gets the adaptive suspension from that recently retired hot-hatch king, although the spring rate and the anti-roll bar stiffness have apparently been decreased for a more comfortable ride.
We weren’t able to test the ride quality on the smooth surface at Thruxton, but through bends, the Prelude seems to allow a little bit of body roll in Comfort while being more taut in Sport mode. Even that doesn’t feel as harsh as the softer settings in a Type R, though. The steering also weights up nicely as you move up into the GT and Sport modes.
What’s this ‘gearbox’ all about?
Here’s where the Prelude further distances itself from the standard Civic. Honda has created something that it’s calling S+ Shift technology. Essentially, this simulates an eight-speed automatic gearbox (the e:HEV powertrain doesn’t need a gearbox at all) with close ratios for lots of sporty ‘shifting.’ And yep, there are paddles mounted behind the steering wheel for you to ‘change gear’ yourself. Whole lot of air quotes needed here.
And yet, on first impressions the system seems to do its job very well. You activate it by pressing a large S+ button on the center console, which then brings up a rev counter on the digital dial display that ‘redlines’ at 6,000rpm. That’s the limit because this is an Atkinson-cycle gasoline engine that’s focused on efficiency in a hybrid powertrain, and Honda said it wanted to be honest about the actual revs of the engine even if the ‘shifts’ weren’t real.
Engine noise is played through the speakers and is most prominent in Sport mode, but we’re also told this is the real engine note that’s amplified rather than being a completely fake sound.
Manually ‘shifting’ on a circuit certainly helps with your sense of speed, particularly on the way into a corner, and you’ll never be caught out by hitting the rev limiter on exit because there isn’t one. It’ll just ‘change up’ for you.
We’ll need more time with the Prelude to make a call on whether the S+ setup is a bit of a gimmick or not, but our first thought is it’s a clever addition that adds a welcome bit of driver engagement. Didn’t do the Ioniq 5 N any harm, did it?
Anything else I need to know about the way it drives?
It certainly isn’t rapid, so don’t go expecting the Prelude to be a proper Toyota GR86 rival. The brake pedal is nice and firm, despite it blending regen and actual friction, and there’s a keenness to the acceleration thanks to the electric motor and its instant torque driving the wheels. In its sportier modes, it does feel like it’s egging you on.
It’ll be efficient, too, with the Civic claiming just over 25.5km/L for the boggo spec hybrid on little wheels. And after half a day of being left running between very short bursts on track, even the car we were in was showing 10.6km/L. Not bad for a two-door coupe.
What’s it like inside?
The driving position is good with a slightly sporty feel to it. There’s a flat-bottomed steering wheel with a center marker and some supportive seats, although sadly, we weren’t able to jump in the back to try out the two dinky rear seats. That may have been for the best—we might not have been able to extract ourselves before the Goodwood run the following day.
Any word on how much it’ll cost?
In a word, no. Expect it to be slightly more than a standard Civic, though it shouldn’t get up to the cost of a Civic Type R.
So, we’ll reserve final judgement for when we get hold of a proper production car for longer than the time it takes to make a cup of tea, and we’ll give the Prelude a score out of 10 at that point, too.
For now, all that’s left to do is thank Honda once again for not sticking the name on a small SUV.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
