2026 Honda Prelude Won’t Be a Civic Type R Competitor: Report

Don’t let the sporty look fool you. New quotes from Honda’s large project chief engineer suggest that the new Prelude isn’t meant to compete with the Civic Type R or Integra Type S.By Jack FitzgeraldPublished: Nov 11, 2023Save Article

Honda

Honda recently revealed a near-production-looking concept car that brings back the iconic Prelude name.
The concept is a low-slung two-door coupe that Honda has said prioritizes “the joy of driving.”
However, new quotes from Honda’s large project chief engineer, Tomoyuki Yamagami, suggest that the new Prelude won’t be sporty enough to compete with the Civic Type R or Integra Type S.

All signs point to Honda’s bringing the historical Prelude name back in the form of a new hybrid coupe. The brand officially showed off the car at this year’s Tokyo auto show as a concept, although unofficially we think it’s more accurate to call the Prelude a near-production prototype.Honda

Don’t be fooled by the low-slung and sporty look of the two-door coupe, though. Despite Honda’s statement at the reveal that the new car will prioritize “the joy of driving,” quotes from Honda large project chief engineer Tomoyuki Yamagami suggest that the new Prelude won’t necessarily be a track-day weapon.

In an interview with Australia’s CarsGuide, Yamagami said the new Prelude “isn’t going to be the sportiest, zippiest car that’s going to be tossed into the circuits.” The publication suggested that it will therefore not compete against, for instance, the Subaru BRZ or Toyota GR86. While that doesn’t mean enthusiasts should immediately write the Prelude off as boring, it does suggest that the new version will be positioned somewhere below the brand’s own track-ready cars like the Civic Type R and the Acura Integra Type S. Furthering that point, Yamagami continued by saying, “We’re developing this as a four-seater, so you will be seeing a second row with two seats available as well.” Take that last comment with a grain of salt. The Subaru BRZ and Toyota GR86 both have “back seats” and are no worse off for it.Elana Scherr|Car and Driver

The Prelude is more likely to serve as something of a replacement for the discontinued coupe versions of the Civic and Accord. Think of the Prelude as filling the space between the harder, more focused cars like the Civic Type R and softer, more livable cars like the outgoing Accord coupe—an economical front-wheel-drive GT car.

More Revamped Honda News

We know the Prelude will use a hybrid powertrain, but we don’t know the specifics yet. We expect it to share underpinnings with either the Civic or the Accord. We’re hopeful the hybrid setup will be a bit more potent than the 204-hp Accord Hybrid, but it’s also possible the new car will use a similar configuration, simply with a more powerful gasoline engine.

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Jack Fitzgerald

Associate News Editor

Jack Fitzgerald’s love for cars stems from his as yet unshakable addiction to Formula 1.
After a brief stint as a detailer for a local dealership group in college, he knew he needed a more permanent way to drive all the new cars he couldn’t afford and decided to pursue a career in auto writing. By hounding his college professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he was able to travel Wisconsin seeking out stories in the auto world before landing his dream job at Car and Driver. His new goal is to delay the inevitable demise of his 2010 Volkswagen Golf.

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Honda Prelude Returns as a Sporty Coupe, Now with Hybrid Power

The storied Prelude name is back, now applied to a stylish-looking gas-electric two-door that Honda says prioritizes “the joy of driving.”By Joey CapparellaUpdated: Oct 26, 2023Save Article

View PhotosHonda

Honda has revealed a new concept car with the iconic Prelude name.
The Prelude is a two-door coupe that looks remarkably production-ready.
We don’t have any details on its powertrain, but we know it’s a hybrid and we’re hoping it becomes a reality soon.

CLARIFICATION 10/25/23: A Honda spokesperson said on Twitter that the Prelude concept has a hybrid powertrain, not battery-electric. We have updated this story accordingly.

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The Integra is back, and now so is the Prelude. Another exciting name from Honda’s past has returned, this time applied to a sporty-looking two-door coupe concept with a hybrid powertrain. Revealed at the Tokyo auto show, the Prelude concept supposedly previews future “electrified” Honda models, specifically sports-car models that promise to prioritize driver engagement and performance.

View PhotosHonda

We don’t have any details on the Prelude’s hybrid powertrain or which platform it will use, but we suspect it may share underpinnings with either the Civic or the Accord. Hopefully its hybrid setup will have more than the Accord hybrid’s 204 horsepower, though it may use a similar configuration simply with a more powerful gasoline engine. Sadly, we don’t expect to see any sort of manual transmission, not even a simulated one, as none of Honda’s recent hybrids have offered a stick-shift and CEO said the company wasn’t considering this approach and would instead use other performance metrics for imbuing engaging dynamics into its forthcoming electrified models.

The Prelude concept looks about exactly as you’d imagine a 21st century interpretation of the coupe from the 80s and 90s to look. It’s not radically low-slung, but instead looks somewhat like a sleeker version of an Accord coupe—which itself was discontinued a few generations back. We’re hoping that this means a legitimate two-door is returning to Honda’s lineup, as the automaker hasn’t produced a true sports car since the S2000 or even a coupe since the Civic and Accord dropped their two-door variants.

View PhotosElana Scherr|Car and Driver

Though billed as a concept, the Prelude doesn’t appear to have any overly fanciful features that would have to change for production. We’re hoping that Honda decides to make this car a reality sooner rather than later. The company has indicated that electrified sports cars are in the pipeline, and the other may be a spiritual successor to the Acura NSX. We’re excited to hear more about what’s to come and to get more info on the resurrected Prelude.

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Joey Capparella

Deputy Editor, Rankings Content

Despite being raised on a steady diet of base-model Hondas and Toyotas—or perhaps because of it—Joey Capparella nonetheless cultivated an obsession for the automotive industry throughout his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee. He found a way to write about cars for the school newspaper during his college years at Rice University, which eventually led him to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for his first professional auto-writing gig at Automobile Magazine. He has been part of the Car and Driver team since 2016 and now lives in New York City.

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2026 Honda Prelude vs. the Toyota Prius: Unlikely Competitors?

Despite their seemingly contradictory audiences, these sleek hybrid hatchbacks may have more in common than you think.By Jack FitzgeraldPublished: Sep 5, 2025Save Article

See Prelude PhotosMichael Simari and Honda

Being a front-drive two-door car, the new 2026 Honda Prelude doesn’t have any direct competitors, but the Toyota Prius may be an unlikely rival.
Door count and performance parts aside, the Prelude and Prius overlap in other areas, such as styling cues, hybrid powertrains, and hatchback bodies.
Both hybrid hatches have roughly 200 horsepower, but the Prelude’s possibly $41,000-plus price tag is a bit steeper than even the fanciest Prius.

This one may ruffle some feathers. After all, on-paper specs can’t tell a car’s entire story. But a simple stat line serves as an introduction to a vehicle, and our first thought after seeing the 2026 Honda Prelude’s horsepower figure was: “That’s about the same as a Prius.”

The two cars are anything but natural competitors; however, they have some interesting similarities. The Prius is a sleekly styled front-wheel-drive hatchback with a hybrid powertrain. Despite camouflaging itself as a coupe, the similarly sleek Prelude is, well, a front-drive hatchback with a hybrid powertrain. These unlikely rivals also appear to share design bloodlines with their sharp noses, slim upper grilles, and squinty headlights. Their backsides further raise paternity questions, with each featuring raked rear windows and full-width taillights surrounded by black trim. But again, that’s not the whole story.

View PhotosHonda

View PhotosMichael Simari|Car and Driver

It’s been about 25 years since Honda last sold a new Prelude, and over the past two decades, the market for compact sport coupes has all but dried up. Even by opening the conversation to all-wheel-drive options, scraping together a list of 10 or more budget-oriented sporty compacts is a tall order. So, with what we know of the new Honda Prelude so far, let’s see how it stacks up against the newly beautified, albeit historically dorky, Toyota Prius.

Comparing Powertrains

The Prelude wins out in the power department, but not by as much as you might think. Its powertrain comes unmodified from the Honda Civic Hybrid. That means pairing a 2.0-liter four-cylinder with a pair of electric motors. One motor attaches directly to the engine and serves as a generator, with the other acting as a traction motor. Prius models with 19-inch wheels muster an impressive EPA-estimated 52 mpg combined, and while Honda hasn’t announced fuel-economy ratings for the Prelude, the Civic Hybrid boasts 48 mpg combined, so its two-door counterpart might not be too far behind.

View Exterior PhotosHonda

The Prelude’s hybrid system spits out a combined 200 horsepower and 232 pound-feet of torque. The front-wheel-drive Prius, for its part, generates a combined 194 horsepower from its hybrid 2.0-liter inline-four (upgrading to all-wheel drive moves that figure to 196). The Toyota also makes do by combining its four-pot with a pair of electric motors, though the setup is slightly different than Honda’s. We recorded a zero-to-60-mph time of 7.1 seconds in our last test of a front-drive Prius. We’ll need to wait until we test a new Prelude to clock its 60-mph time, but for reference, the Civic Sport Touring Hybrid we tested took just 6.2 seconds to hit the mile-per-minute mark.

Although driving the Prius around town no longer feels like operating Fred Flintstone’s cavemobile, there’s no mistaking the engine for being truly sporty. For the Prelude’s part, that’s where its new S+ Shift system will try to make a difference. The system, which will proliferate to other hybrid Hondas, attempts to simulate the feeling of a traditional transmission by pretending to hold gears, blip the throttle on downshifts, and let the driver feel like they’re swapping cogs via the steering-wheel paddle shifters. Once we get behind the wheel of the new Prelude, we can see if this turns out to be dumb fun or just plain dumb.

View Exterior PhotosMichael Simari|Car and Driver

To Sport, or Not to Sport

Both the Prius and the Prelude offer large 19-inch wheels, but the latter will surely provide a sportier driving experience, even though it’s billed as a grand tourer. The Prelude inherits brake and front suspension parts from the track-tuned Honda Civic Type R, namely the dual-axis front-strut setup and large four-piston Brembo front brakes—if the Prelude’s rotors are like dinner plates, the Prius’s are like side dishes.

Meanwhile, ever focused on fuel efficiency, the Toyota wears a skinny set of 195/50R-19 tires, which managed just 0.81 g on our long-term 2025 Prius XLE. TBD on the Prelude’s max cornering grip, but it’ll come standard with 19-inch wheels wearing wider 235-section-width Goodyear Eagle Touring all-season tires. Unlike the Prius, the two-door Honda will have an optional set of summer rubber.

View PhotosMichael Simari|Car and Driver

View PhotosHonda

Interior and Price

Inside, the Prius has the edge in practicality. For starters, there are four doors, so getting in and out of the back seat is less cumbersome. Neither model has a particularly spacious back seat, either, but the Prius has the advantage with 34.8 inches of rear legroom compared with the Prelude’s 32 inches.

Most people will agree that the Honda has the more attractive cabin, with available two-tone upholstery and asymmetrically bolstered GT-spec seats. The Prelude also doesn’t have the Prius’s awkwardly placed digital gauges, and its Google-based infotainment software is more user-friendly than Toyota’s native system. We don’t yet know the Prelude’s exact cargo capacity, but we’re told there’s enough room for bulky items like golf bags, although you’ll need to stow the back seats. Meanwhile, higher-spec Prius trims have 20 cubic feet of space without folding any seats.

View PhotosHonda

View PhotosMichael Simari|Car and Driver

Then there’s pricing. As a compact commuter focused on being economical, the 2026 Prius starts at a modest $29,745. But as the base LE trim rides on a set of 17-inch wheels and doesn’t come equipped with a ton of options. We think the higher XLE and Limited, with their standard 19-inch wheels, are a better comparison. For reference, the front-drive versions start at $33,190 and $36,760, respectively.

Since Honda is only offering the Prelude in one fully loaded trim level, it won’t have an equally wide range of prices, though several standalone accessories will be available. The U.S.-spec Prelude’s final price is still gestating, but a Honda spokesperson told us the Japanese model’s roughly $41,700 price can be used as guidance. If that turns out to be true, the new two-door hybrid hatch will be pricier than we initially thought, placing it in the middle ground between the $34,690 Civic Sport Touring hatchback and the Civic Type R, which currently starts at around $47K.

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