If there’s one thing that’s certain in the automotive industry, it’s that ideas rarely dwindle on the vine forever. Take two-row off-roaders, for example. Largely written off just a decade ago as unibody crossovers demonstrated their everyday liveability, the body-on-frame midsize SUV is nonetheless experiencing a resurgence in popularity, and it might not be the only segment reappearing from the ether. Between confirmation of a new Toyota Celica and anticipation of the new Honda Prelude, it looks like sporty mainstream coupes are coming back from extinction, and that deserves closer examination.
Keep in mind, we aren’t talking about sports cars or even sports coupes here. The Subaru BRZ, Toyota GR Supra, Nissan Z, and others have been carrying the torch on that front. Nope, we’re talking about coupes with relatively common mechanicals that look sporty, and possibly drive a little bit sharper than their more humdrum siblings, but aren’t out-and-out performance machines. This genre of car is more about looking rakish than setting lap times, and it’s a style that completely disappeared a few years ago.
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The peak of it all was, unsurprisingly, the 1990s. A time where you could choose from a huge selection of front-wheel-drive coupes. We’re talking Nissan 200SX, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Dodge Stealth, Acura Integra, Isuzu Impulse, Hyundai Scoupe, Toyota Paseo, Honda Prelude, and Toyota Celica, not to mention the litany of two-door versions of standard economy cars that looked like two-door versions of standard economy cars. The coupe still mattered, it offered an image that made buyers feel good, one of rakishness and posture largely detached from rear-wheel-drive purism and extreme performance.
Flash forward to 2024, and everything in this segment is gone. The lot. There’s no more Scion tC because there’s no more Scion, there’s no more Hyundai Veloster, there’s no more Honda Civic coupe, you just aren’t walking down to any new car dealership for a non-luxury brand and buying an otherwise normal two-door or three-door car because they don’t exist anymore. The narrative’s clear — everyone wants crossovers, nobody wants coupes. So why do two manufacturers seem intent on bringing them back?
Let’s start with Honda. Last year, the automaker unveiled an absolute showstopper at the Japan Mobility Show, an all-new Prelude concept with a liftback coupe form. The internet went nuts over it, but for good reason. Not only did Honda confirm the development of a production model, we had a poke around the concept car at the 2023 Los Angeles auto show and found it to be more production-like than any pure concept car has any need to be. It has a proper wiper cowl and wiper transmission, retroreflectors in the rear valence, real mirrors, a center high mount stop light, and a production car quantity of shut lines.
Recently, a prototype was spotted in Germany looking a whole lot like the Prelude concept from the auto show circuit, which means Honda’s getting serious here. Of course, it’s still camouflaged, but testing on public roads usually doesn’t happen early in a car’s development, so it wouldn’t be out of pocket to expect a production-spec model to drop by the end of 2026. Once that happens, the Prelude will truly be in a class of one — or actually, it might not.
See, over at Toyota, rumors of a revived Celica have been floating around for years now. From a comment by Toyota president Koji Sato that he desired a new Celica to an Easter egg in an episode of Toyota’s own anime short series, the breadcrumbs have consistently been dropping, and the biggest one yet might’ve arrived. Japanese outlet Best Car reports asking Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda about rumors of a new Celica at Rally Japan last weekend. Toyoda deferred to Executive Vice President Yuki Nakajima, who answered in a fairly concrete manner, “I wonder if it’s okay to say this in a public forum, but we’re doing the Celica!”
Yeah, that makes sense. There’s no way Toyota would simply let Honda have 100 percent market share in a niche, right? While there’s no timeline yet on when a new Celica could launch, this certainly seems to be confirmation that the first Celica in 18 years has the green light, despite the narrative that nobody buys coupes anymore.
So why does it seem like Honda and Toyota are intent on reviving an extinct segment? Well, maybe the time is right. Firstly, people who wanted a car like this growing up are now in the right age bracket to consider a coupe again. If you graduated high school in 1992, went to a four-year college, got married, and had children, there’s a non-zero chance you’re either about to become an empty-nester or already are one. Secondly, as much as people like to go around saying young people don’t care about cars, that couldn’t be further from the truth. A simple glance at social media will show car-crazy Gen Zs and younger millennials, and the models frequently idolized come from Japan’s golden era. In an age when young people are disenchanted by homeowner prospects and putting off having kids, maybe coupes actually make sense, provided they’re normal and affordable enough to function well as everyday transportation.
Regardless of rationale, it sure looks like the sporty coupe market is heating up after a few years of dormancy. For those who want something sleek that isn’t an out-and-out sports car, and those who like to see a broader mix of cars on the road, these announcements seem like potential wins. What goes around comes back around, right?
(Photo credits: Honda, Toyota)
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Back in my day, it wasn’t uncommon to see a coupe, sedan and wagon version of each class segment offering.
For the domestics, that could mean 9 choices available of the same basic model.
But if you were stylish, you wore an onion on your belt. There weren’t white ones because of the war, just the big yellow ones….
If they are priced accordingly, they could be a hit. Instead, I have a feeling that they are going to be priced at too much of a premium over the civic/corolla range to make them a real option except for the nostalgic crowd.
I’m reserving judgement until I actually see either one of these on a dealership floor without “Ready for your adventurous outdoor lifestyle!” grey plastic lower body cladding, a minor lift kit, raised white letter all terrain looking tires and probably a couple vinyl stickers with little trees or mountain silhouettes or maybe some stylized mud splashes.
Let’s pump the brakes for a minute; Honda has a track record of totally screwing up completely obvious wins; see: CRZ, which was basically a civic hybrid but worse.
The CR-Z was more Insight than Civic. It wasn’t in any way a bad idea, just executed before the technology was where it should’ve been. Honda’s current hybrid system is leagues ahead of the old IMA system used in the CR-Z.
The CRZ should have been 1st-gen Insight-sized, with better aero streamlining than the Insight. Put an S2000 engine in it for the Si model, a hybrid drive system for the HF model, and offer a pure EV option.
If the Celica returns, it better be RWD, with a manual offered.
With the G-Rolla turbo-3, please!
That’s been in production since 2012 with an 86 badge on it.
I’m wondering if the return of a Celica coincides with the end of the line for the 86/that joint venture.
I’ve never seen a production Celica with such an inefficient, oil-consuming, short-lived boxer engine. Give it a proper, reliable, inline-3/4 or V6 Toyota engine, or maybe even a Prius drive system, and we’ll talk.
They really should have called it the Celica when it stopped being a Scion
It might be RWD, but I’ll be surprised if it has a manual. Too much cost involved in developing both an auto and a manual, and the auto would have a much higher take rate.
The auto will probably have “manual mode” paddle shifters or one of those “upshift/downshift” toggles that my old Kia had (but we never used), but fundamentally it will be some type of computer controlled automatic underneath.
“We’re talking Nissan 200SX, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Dodge Stealth, Acura Integra, Isuzu Impulse, Hyundai Scoupe, Toyota Paseo, Honda Prelude, and Toyota Celica, not to mention the litany of two-door versions of standard economy cars that looked like two-door versions of standard economy cars“
I am confused here, and I am not trying to be shitty. I feel like I am missing something.
The 200 SX (B14) was the 2-door version of the 4-door Sentra, chassis code B14 (the 200 may have been B14a, IIRC). But, it was only the SE-R version that was sporty; there were plenty of GA16DE 200s and Sentas/Sunnys.
Beyond that…. I don’t know how to parse the “two-door versions… that looked like two-door versions….”
Can anyone enlighten me?

That mention of 200SX is likely referring to the mid-80s S12 (Silvia) as pictured in the bottom right in that collage of photos. 240SX might have been more aligned timewise with the rest of those models in the same paragraph, as that was S13 here then, followed by the S14 coexisting with the B14 200SX.
And maybe also to your point the Scoupe (turbo aside) and Paseo fall more in the category of 2-door versions of economy cars (that also had 2-door versions).
It goes beyond that. 200sx is used for both S13 and S14 chassis internationally, all depending on what engine was used in the chassis. If it got an SR20, then the S chassis name was 200sx. It probably even applies to S15s though I haven’t ever paid much attention to those. The article would read better to us in the US if it said 240sx, or instead of 200sx it just said Nissan S chassis.
They BETTER make a GR-Four Celica with the GR Yaris/Corolla 3-cylinder and AWD system. I’d seriously consider some poor financial decisions to have one.
I also think (hope?) crossovers and SUVs are about to become as un-cool as minivans did.
Yes! The smartest thing Honda and Toyota could do would be to have driving events for the target market so everyone can see how much fun it is to drive an actual car. And don’t let the dealers mark these coupes up. Any dealer that marks up a coupe should have their supply cut off.
Or at least the markup being reasonable, like 1-2k$ at most.
SUVs, Maybe. But crossovers, I don’t think so.
The knowledge that the Prelude is coming back has kept me going for some time. Given how far along the prototype was in the spy shots, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a reveal at the NY Auto Show and first deliveries in late ’25 or early ’26.
A functional, sporty, efficient 2 door coupe sounds just about right for my 40 year old back. Don’t need an ultra luxe F250 Platinum to commute to work nor do I want a vanilla sedan or SUV… I’ll take the Prelude, just like my 2001 Honda Prelude in silver. I can live with that.
Electric Door Handles….
This hasn’t been confirmed, and I’d honestly be surprised. My assumption is that they’re just flush-fitting like the GT-R’s.
For a prelude, they’d be price prohibitive to implement. I’m unsure of the exact cost per vehicle, but there’s an extra digit in the cost for sure, and on a hopefully sub-30k hybrid sports coupe, and a lower-volume model at that, there’s no chance Honda would spend the money on implementing them. That’s what I tell myself out of hope at least.
I could see them trying to do something fancy like that, but I think it’s more likely (1) they would leave that for a future Acura and (2) they would just use door handles from the Civic. I mean they don’t even do a ton of differentiation on the dash designs between Honda models + the Integra & ADX, they should think simple like in their old ads.
FWIW the prototype in the spy shots had the same door handles as the concept but yes, they don’t make sense at this price point and given Honda’s general conservative ways.
Can we also get a new Mazda MX-6?
I’ll be ok with no MX-6 if they give us the Icona SP instead.