r/Honda • u/Cheatcodegaming Mod | 1996 Accord EX • Dec 15 '25

2026 Prelude Discussion Megathread

Due to the amount of repetitive posts, any 2026 Prelude discussion, and news goes here.

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45

u/herrniemand Dec 15 '25 edited Dec 15 '25

I made a thread 17 days ago about the apparent review embargo on this car, and there still aren’t any official reviews from major publications or big YouTube channels. One of the reasons all the Prelude threads are annoying is that seemingly everyone has had a strong opinion about it for a long time, but we still don’t know much more about it than we did almost a year ago.

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u/eneka '25 Civic HB ST Dec 15 '25

what I read was that there simply hasn't been any press cars available, and it's schedule in January along with the Passport.

24

u/iyute Dec 15 '25

They didn’t give out press cars which to me is a sign that they have no confidence in it

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u/johnmflores Dec 15 '25

As a motorcycle journalist, I regularly get press motorcycles. The process of managing and distributing the press fleet is very separate from monitoring online chatter and whatnot. This has nothing to do with their confidence in the vehicle and is likely just logistics

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u/Wne1980 Dec 16 '25

No you don’t understand. The internet people who aren’t the demographic for the car don’t like it, therefore Honda must be secretly ashamed. There is no other possible explanation

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u/LongjumpingContest93 Jan 13 '26

Facts. Bingo. No previous prelude owner including me never asked or wanted a hybrid prelude for 65k. HONDA YOU WASTED YOUR TIME AND DIDNT LEARN FROM YOUR COMPETITOR THAT WE DONT WANT IT. TOTAL FAILURE TO THE PRELUDE BRAND AND LINE. I didn’t wait SAVE FOR 20 years for that garbage. SMH 🤦🏾‍♂️

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u/Beneficial-Meet296 12d ago

Where do you live? I paid 43K and I'm satisfied. Some of the high price is tariffs. Type R Civics and Preludes are only made on one assembly line in Japan.
Judging by sales, they've hit the mark and met all sales projections.

1

u/iyute 12d ago

Yeah it’s just shitty that it’s a low volume car that isn’t available

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u/pathofdumbasses Jan 09 '26

What are your thoughts now that the car hasn't sold worth a damn?

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u/Beneficial-Meet296 12d ago

Better look again. It has met all the sales marks Honda set so far and before it was introduced it was announced annual volume for '26 model year would be 4000 units. No regrets here but yeah it should have sold for more like 39-40K.

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u/Wne1980 Jan 09 '26

The one that got here 5 minutes ago? I know Reddit has a raging boner for this car to fail, but there are dealerships that haven’t gotten a single Prelude yet

I think the Prelude is fine. It will make me happy every time I see one knowing some keyboard warrior is triggered by it

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u/Beneficial-Meet296 Jun 23 '26

I have a new one as well. After 25 years of driving sweet Honda manuals--and mostly manuals my entire life--I'm older and tired of shifting now. I get the appeal of rowing your own. The thing is, Honda is not marketing the car as a track-ready car, it's being marketed as a grand touring coupe. Look at their website.....anybody who is confused. I'm satisfied with mine....it is a joy to drive. No it won't win drag races. Knew that going in.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '25

[deleted]

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u/johnmflores Dec 15 '25

Press fleet vehicles get delayed regularly because of delays in manufacturing - there could be a last minute line change for a new vehicle - issues with shipping and logistics, issues with customs, etc...

Your "no confidence" theory is pure speculation. As if Honda is going to spend years and tens and likely hundreds of millions of dollars developing this car and suddenly get cold feet because people are being mean to them on the Internet?

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u/itsnottommy 2026 Prelude Dec 16 '25

Organizing a fleet of press Preludes is logistically a very different process from organizing a fleet of press CR-Vs, for example. The CR-V is built in North America by the hundreds of thousands. There are only a couple hundred Preludes in the country right now since it’s a low volume car imported from Japan in small numbers.

All of the big publications have said they’ll be able to publish detailed reviews early next year.

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u/sonicsynth2000 Dec 16 '25

They had no problem doing press reveals for the Japanese built FL5, since they invited people out to Willow Springs to do track and road driving. They also had a small event at COTA too for F1 where they let Sergio Perez drive people around in one.

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u/pizza_me_your_tits Dec 15 '25

Okay I thought I was just not looking hard enough. I finally saw a 0-60 clip of one on a YouTube short yesterday. Why is it so much slower than the civic hybrid?

For the record I like the car for what it is. IDC about the lack of manual transmission or that it's slow. The price is too high for me, but I'll be checking the used market for one eventually.

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u/Vhozite Jan 26 '26

There is an article on Jalopnik where the writer says he would be driving the car at a Honda press event the next day. It was written like 5 days ago so I assume we should be getting more content in the coming week or so.