Honda says new Prelude won't be the 'sportiest, coolest car'. The model should hit the markets around 2025.
No one expected Honda to revive the Prelude for the Japan Mobility Show, held in Tokyo from late October to early November.. At first it was believed that the sports coupe would be fully electric, but after clarification by a company representative, it turned out to be a hybrid.
Honda chief engineer Tomoyuki Yamagami shared some juicy tidbits with Australian magazine CarsGuide. He called the car shown at JMS 2023 a prototype, although the official name was Prelude Concept. This is a strong indication that we are dealing with more than just a concept that we will never see, as is usually the case with cars presented at auto shows. In fact, Yamagami said that the car is currently in development, and that the goal is to go on sale sometime in the mid-2020s.
He continued to recall that it will be a global model as it is being developed for both left and right hand drive. Yamagami declined to go into detail about the mysterious hybrid powertrain, but he did emphasize that it won't be a hardcore race-oriented sports car: “It won't be the sportiest, most agile car that's going to challenge on the racetrack.”
He explained that the next production model will be “a prelude to all the electric vehicles that Honda is going to release.”. He confirmed a practical four-seat layout, although judging by the heavily sloping roofline, it's likely to be more like a 2+2.