New Honda Prelude: hybrid-powered coupe to debut at Goodwood Festival of Speed

• New Honda Prelude revealed
• Sleek coupe coming to the Goodwood Festival of Speed
• Will use a two-motor hybrid system
• Emphasis on driving pleasure over outright speed
• On sale in 2025

The new Honda Prelude concept will be making an appearance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this month, and Carwow has been given the chance to poke around this slinky new coupe ahead of the event.

We also got to speak with Tomoyuki Yamagami – Chief Engineer at Honda Motor Japan – about some of the technical aspects of this new car.

New Honda Prelude design

A lot of car manufacturers are resurrecting old nameplates and sticking them on SUVs. Ford kick started this trend with the Mustang Mach-e, Puma and the forthcoming Capri. Honda has taken a different approach though, because the new Prelude is a sporty-looking two-door coupe – just like the original from the 1980s.

It looks a lot more modern than that car though. You have sleek LED headlights up front, with a slim vent running between them. The carbon fibre vents around the lower bumper also make it look more aggressive.

Down the side the Prelude has a sporty coupe silhouette, which is a breath of fresh air for petrolheads in this age of jacked-up crossovers. The black wheels and red brake callipers look great, especially when paired with the carbon side skirts.

You get a full-width light bar at the rear of the car, along with a neat carbon fibre lip spoiler for added downforce. The black lower diffuser finishes things off nicely – it’s a properly handsome-looking coupe.

New Honda Prelude engine and driving

Honda is keeping its cards close to its chest in terms of performance figures for the new Prelude, however Chief Engineer Tomoyuki Yamagami has hinted that this car will be more about the driving experience than outright power.

Speaking to Carwow he said: “The performance will not be defined by specification, torque or top speed, these are just numbers on a piece of paper that do not really represent and reflect the dynamic feeling to the driver.”

Yamagami-san also confirmed that the new Prelude will use Honda’s latest two-motor petrol hybrid system, which is likely to be a similar setup to the one found in the Civic. That car uses a 2.0-litre petrol engine with two electric motors powering the front wheels. It puts out 184hp, however it remains to be seen whether the Prelude will get more power than this.

These days a lot of performance cars are going electric – just look at the new Hyundai Ioniq 5 N and the Alpine A290. Yamagami-san explained to us why Honda has stuck with petrol power for the Prelude.

“Honda is also developing battery-electric vehicles – our ultimate goal for 2040 is to have a fully carbon-neutral lineup. However, in our current path of transition we also wanted to demonstrate that Honda has not forgotten about the most important part of our DNA, which is the pleasure of driving.

“For the concept Prelude we have considered many other kinds of propulsion systems, however it was quite clear that the two-motor hybrid system we have at the moment is the most suitable in terms of packaging and capability.

“We wanted to have a full four-seater with sufficient luggage space, while still enabling a low centre of gravity. All of these aspects were in favour of a hybrid powertrain.”

New Honda Prelude: when can I buy one?

Yamagami-san will be unveiling the new Prelude in Europe at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this July, and it’ll join Honda’s lineup in 2025. There’s no word on price just yet, however we’d estimate it to cost between £40,000 and £50,000.

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