It’s safe to say that we’re absolutely stoked for the next Honda Prelude. Not only does the concept look fabulous, its three-door liftback form is just pragmatic enough for everyday use, and it should mark the return of the front-wheel-drive sport compact coupe. Anything that could bring a segment back from extinction is pretty neat, right?
We still don’t know what hybrid powertrain will be under the hood, but if a Japanese report proves true, the next Prelude could take a page from Hondas of the past. Japanese publication Best Car claims the incoming Prelude may be available as a hybrid with a six-speed manual transmission. Should that happen, it would be the first manual hybrid Honda since the CR-Z, although such a system might not work quite as we expect most hybrid drivetrains to today.
Throwing things back to the CR-Z, its system used an electric motor sandwiched between the crankshaft and the flywheel to take some propulsion duties away from the engine, but only ever some. The CR-Z, like the original Insight, couldn’t solely power itself on electric power alone and instead used its electric motor as a helping hand. It’s right there in Honda’s name for the tech, Integrated Motor Assist.
It’s the sort of hybrid system the automotive aftermarket has taken a shining to, such as Vonnen’s Shadow Drive for Porsche 911s. This kit replaces the flywheel with an assembly that includes a 150 horsepower electric motor, adds a fairly small battery pack weighing 170 pounds, and cools everything using liquid-based systems.
Indeed, pairing hybrid assistance with a manual transmission is now more of a power thing than a massive fuel economy booster, unless you downsize the engine to match or pull a little mechanical trickery. Well, BestCar claims a system like this would be paired with a two-liter four-cylinder with direct injection. Hey, that sounds a whole lot like the engine in the Accord Hybrid, which generates 143 horsepower and 129 lb.-ft. of torque on its own and uses the Atkinson cycle for improved efficiency.
In modern applications, the Atkinson cycle just means leaving the intake valves open for a little bit after the engine finishes its intake stroke. This pushes a little bit of air back into the intake manifold at the start of the compression stroke, which lowers the effective compression ratio but leaves the expansion ratio of the engine unchanged. The result? Less power density but greater efficiency. When combined with electric assistance, it has the potential to get remarkably solid mileage, though one should not expect Prius-like economy from a setup where the engine has to run all the time.
Of course, rumors of the upcoming Prelude pairing a manual transmission with hybrid assistance aren’t official, and since Honda phased out the Integrated Motor Assist setup in 2016, a whole lot of research and development would be required to build a new version. For now, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
(Photo credits: Honda, Thomas Hundal)
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This isn’t a Prelude.
Tall upright greenhouse, sleek rectangular nose, squared off tail with a trunk – that’s the Prelude formula.
This is an Integra.
This car looks much more Civic coupe or Integra 2-door than any Prelude.
Maybe it’s better in person. The front looks like a duckbill. The rear just looks generic. The side looks like a 16 year old Genesis Coupe.
I liked gen 2/3. This is more gen 4/5. I wasn’t into those either.
On the one hand, it’s a much sleeker version of the Civic Si coupe and that’s a good thing. On the other, it’s likely going to cost upwards of $40K. I’m glad it exists, but I’m not sure the excitement we currently have for it is going to persevere when it makes landfall. But here’s hoping. This might be the midlife crisis mobile I can actually convince my wife is a good idea.
Looking at the cut lines on the rear, I’m not sure it’s a lift back. unfortunately it looks like just a small trunk opening. Too bad as that would limit it’s utility quite a lot.
One big demo for this kind of car are single (or empty nest) active people. If you can’t easily throw one or more hockey or golf bags in the hatch, it’s turning it’s back on those customers.
Yeah, that looks like a smaller opening than the BRZ/GR86, which is annoying enough in that car and this being FWD should fall more on the side of practical.
There does seem to be a gap above the rear window that could be a cut line. But between there never having been a liftback Prelude and the dominating attitude in modern automotive design being that sports/”sporty” cars don’t need everyday practicality the chances of this being a new iteration of the Civic coupe instead of an attempt at reviving the sleek, sporty 3-door segment that died with the discontinuation of the Mitsubishi Eclipse (or the Audi TT, depending on how high you want to set your budget).
It’s a shame. From roughly the late 1960s to the early/mid 2000s, it was a common thing for any 2-door front-engined sports car to have a liftback hatch, but now car companies think everyone who wants to buy a sports car either has a second car that they use for a daily and is only buying it for fun/track days or never carries more than one other person (cases in point, the current Toyota Supra and Nissan 400Z being 2-seaters only).
A VTEC hybrid thing like the 918 but costing much less would be awesome. The electric motor shit would fill in for the lack of torque associated with the classic VTEC yo
Also, I hope it comes with a cool dash like the 4th gen
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/53/85/95/53859596df6efb485fbfc4edc27c5622.jpg
Someone even put a screen in that Prelude dash, and it looks quite modern:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vctmItO4i1o
It’s easy to imagine that dash as a china-market style full-width display, in a good way.