Honda has been awfully quiet about the new Prelude's technical specifications, refusing to detail what powers it. Since we know it will be a hybrid, almost everyone assumes it will be a Civic Hybrid re-bodied as a coupe. Perhaps there's more to it than that? Until the mystery is divulged, a company official has let it slip that the sixth-generation model will be positioned as a performance vehicle.
Jessika Laudermilk, Assistant Vice President of Honda National Sales in the United States, told Automotive News that the new Prelude will be marketed as an actual performance car. It's an interesting and somewhat unexpected statement, considering Honda's chief engineer Tomoyuki Yamagami admitted in late 2023 that the coupe "isn't going to be the sportiest, zippiest car that's going to be tossed into the circuits."
We'll remind you that the Civic Hybrid packs 200 horsepower and 232 pound-feet of torque from a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter gasoline engine and a pair of electric motors. One behaves like a generator and is attached directly to the four-cylinder engine running on the Atkinson cycle, while the other serves as a traction motor.
Although Honda has been secretive about the Prelude's innards, it has revealed that the newcomer will introduce S+ Shift technology. The coupe gets it first, but it will subsequently be installed in all the company's electrified cars featuring the two-motor hybrid system. Without going into specifics, the Japanese brand says the new tech can "simulate the sound and feel of quick automatic gear changes," meaning it's more exciting to drive, presumably by behaving less like a conventional continuously variable transmission (CVT).
A prototype driven last year by Japanese journalists even had paddle shifters to shift gears virtually, which reminded us of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N's N Grin Shift function. Honda also baked in artificial gear-changing sounds. The work-in-progress Prelude had a GT driving mode nestled between the usual Comfort and Sport, plus the Civic Type R's adaptive dampers. Moreover, it inherited the hot hatch's dual-axis steering front suspension. By separating knuckles and dampers, this suspension diminishes torque steer while accelerating and turning front-wheel-drive cars with torquey powertrains.
The new Prelude has wider tracks and a shorter wheelbase than a regular Civic Hybrid. Inside, it'll mainly be a Civic, but with different front seats providing greater lateral support. Given the sloping roofline, you can imagine that the rear headroom won’t be all that great. On the flip side, the large tailgate hints at a spacious cargo area. Honda hasn't officially revealed the car's interior yet, choosing to black out the windows and block the view whenever the Prelude was put on public display. That suggests there could be more changes compared to a regular Civic.
Honda told Japanese journalists invited to test drive a pre-production prototype in 2024 that the car would be more rigid than a Civic while shaving off about 10 percent of weight. Stiffer suspension and sharper handling are also on the menu, all while maintaining the characteristics of a grand tourer.
If Honda wants to dial the car up a notch, a Prelude Si would be a logical step. However, we're getting ahead of ourselves. After all, the standard model hasn't even gone on sale yet. America will get the car later this year, with Europe to follow in early 2026. The new Prelude has been engineered for left- and right-hand-drive markets, so it should have a global presence.
Source: Automotive News
