It’s worth noting that the window of desirability for collector cars is a shifting thing. It was once hot rods, then cars of the ’50s, then ’60s machines, then the Radwood era kicked off, and you know the drill. As it happens, that period is rolling through the early 2000s, and while that explains an uptick in values of certain cars, it doesn’t exclusively explain what you see here. This 2001 Honda Prelude just sold on Bring A Trailer for an astonishing $60,000. We’ll give you a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor.
For those keeping track at home, that’s more than a brand new Toyota GR Supra 3.0, more than a new Honda Civic Type R, more than a new Nissan Z Performance. For a final-generation Prelude that was more of an about-town coupe than an out-and-out performance car. So what on earth is going on here?
Well, it’s certain that the price tag of this Prelude isn’t directly attached to the driving experience. With rev-happy motors and notchy shifters, these Preludes are fun in an everyday setting, but they’re far too nose heavy to be considered anything adjacent to a sports car. Besides, the 2.2-liter H22A4 four-cylinder engine had plenty of midrange torque to lope about town in, generally unconcerned about looking as hard as a full-on sports car owner would.
Still, part of what makes this Prelude special is that it’s an SH model. That trim level’s name stands for Super Handling, partly because the Active Torque Transfer System torque-vectoring cross-axle transfer box on this trim was the first bit of kit to fall under the Super Handling marketing banner, and partly because SH-ATTS isn’t a brilliant trim name. Regardless, this complex set of planetary gears and clutches did its best to inflate this car’s window sticker to $26,540 in 2001 dollars, or about $47,803 in today’s money. Sure, it was pricey for a Honda, but is it really that bad by today’s standards?
However, this Prelude didn’t just manage to match inflation, it managed to beat it, and there’s a good chance part of that is due to attrition. With many semi-attainable tuners cars, a combination of questionable modifications, rust, collisions, and thefts all add to a dwindling supply of nice ones. By 2024, nice Preludes are few and far between, and this is an exceptionally nice one indeed.
With just 4,900 miles on its odometer, this might be the nicest fifth-generation Prelude in the country outside of Honda’s possession. It’s Nighthawk Black paint still looks like a mirror, its seats are still as dark as Adrian’s wardrobe, none of the door panel upholstery is peeling, and there’s not a lick of rust visible on the chassis. Every factory paint marking is still visible, every patch of factory-installed sprayable seam sealer looks right, it’s just an absolutely pristine example.
Oh, and to put the cherry on top, the winning bidder was a collectible car dealer in Auburn, Mass., which could explain the sheer money being thrown around here. It’s yet to be seen whether this gambit pays off, but the result is still quite the spectacle. The $60,000 final-generation Honda Prelude. How about that?
(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer)
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Always wanted to try one of these, driven a couple of earlier Preludes and they were great…but $60K seems like an awful lot. I think the problem a lot of performance Hondas and BMWs have is that there niche when new was being fun daily drivers. Once you make them into older weekend garage queens I’m not sure they’re always special enough as what once made them great no longer applies. And I say this as someone who currently has an old BMW project that’s my weekend driver. But if I was spending on a hot vintage Honda $60K gets me into a really nice S2000, Integra R, or even a mildly scruffy NSX.
Silly man, you’re thinking like you’re going to drive this car. This is to be looked at and admired for its perceived value, not its intrinsic…
lol true. Somewhere between not really being a collector personality and not having the money makes this mindset inaccessible to me.
When I visited the Barber motorcycle museum in Alabama I asked a docent “How many of the bikes run?” I was shocked by the answer; outside of a few movie prop bikes, every motorcycle is 2 hours from being on the track, per Mr. Barber. That is how I judge all “collectors”..
That’s awesome
I’ve a neighbour who recently sold his 2000(?) Integra Type-R (5bolt). I know he’d talked about selling it during covid times when prices were really silly – I should really ask him what someone paid for that car.
We owned a really early 1997 model with a serial number of like 250. It was, without a doubt, one of the finest handling cars I’ve owned.
It’s really surprising to me that this isn’t part of the description of the car when it was widely written about in reviews.
Also, in 1997, a 200hp Honda was something of a novelty and VTec was pretty new. The SH thing lives on, but I think that for Honda, the Prelude was something of a watermark for Honda’s sporting vehicles.
I owned one of these generation Preludes for a little while. A client had one sitting in their yard, clearly for a while. I asked about it and she said it was her adult sons. She said there something wrong with the tranny and the windshield was cracked so it leaked inside. I offered her $500. Her son clearly didn’t want to sell it but was also either to deep into Call of Duty or bottles of JD to get his lazy ass up and do anything about it. So she bullied him to take my offer and it was mine.
I removed the interior and cleaned everything, replaced the windshield for $300 and you know what? The transmission was fine, nothing wrong with it. The car drove beautifully. So I had a Prelude for $1000ish, all in, and some sweat equity. It was really a pleasure to drive.
While I always liked the Prelude, and this one is set up quite nicely, I’d never pay over $40k for one, not even in this condition. Let’s not forget how the transmissions were, and how hard it will be to either find a new one or rebuild the current one with proper upgraded parts. I worked in a few car dealerships in the early 2000s, and the Prelude was one we always had to pat special attention to when they were traded in, not to mention I’d see a lot of them in the service department. It is unfortunate because it is a Honda.
I owned this exact car (2000 Prelude SH) and it was.. fine?
Japan-built, and from the era of high driver engagement, but otherwise not very fast, nose heavy, cramped interior, inexcusably tiny trunk, HORRIBLE gas mileage for a small displacement 4 cylinder.
The SH were all Manuals, so no transmission issues with this one, but you’re correct the autos were made of glass. High failure rates.
I went from this car to an RSX Type S and it was a better car in every way.
BAT isn’t reality anymore. It’s become a playground for rich dudes to brag about how much they overspend on cars that are treated like pogs or trading cards.
More like Qualude! Fantastic car in as-new condition but I can’t wrap my head aorund it being a $60k car. But hey, it’s worth what someone pays for it. Better $60k for this than $100k for a Cybertruck.
One of my best friends worked at Carmax from roughly 01-03, and about 1-2 times a week I’d go meet him there and “test drive” a few cars. This one to this day stands out as far as not understanding how physics works and why we haven’t spun off the road yet, I do think it’s one of the last Japanese engineering marvels from that time, but I’m thinking about 40K tops for a hard core collector.
“Just wait til that VTEC kicks in, YO!”
Nice car but what a ripoff…I never liked the front end of these…I MUCH prefer the 2nd/3rd gens w/ the flip-up lights (used to have 2 Accords like that) I would pay a good amount of $ for one of those in light blue w/ a stick…in good condition…or what I want to do eventually is find a cheap one and fix it up myself and make it nice; that way it includes a sense of accomplishment
Also, this car should have been DRIVEN
NOT EVEN READING IT (sorry)
As it should be.
I would consider any 90’s prelude as automotive perfection.
Except the transmission and a few other bugs.
Very fun car and an absolutely pristine example, but no. Just no. Unless it’s going into that car museum in Illinois that Mercedes just wrote about. That, I could understand.
That museum has a first gen Prelude in a photo, but no mention in the article.
“the winning bidder was a collectible car dealer in Auburn, Mass”
Wonder what he will ask for it on his lot ??
I’m a sucker for VTEC (as my ’06 VFR800A Interceptor will attest) and that Prelude looks clean AF…but dang, that’s like $84,500 Canadian AKA…still not enough for a down payment on a house. Maybe I *do* want a pristine Prelude…
$84,500 CDN will get you a 1 year lease in an apartment in Toronto
I had a 98 Prelude, and it was the most fun car I’ve ever owned. I wouldn’t pay $60 for one, tho.
Now I need to watch “Tampopo” again…
I had a 1989 Honda Prelude Si 4WS 5-Speed my senior year in HS and left it behind for college. Loved that car more than any I have owned since! I was just wondering if I could find one for sale somewhere in halfway decent condition and a reasonable cost. This sale makes me worried!
That car is clean enough that without context I would have immediately assumed that these were original marketing photos.
I was hoping I could get one of these when I was heading off to college, but it didn’t work out. Oh well.
The Civic I got instead had 215k on it when I got rid of it, so I’m sure my Prelude wouldn’t have been going for $60k. Of course I might have kept the Prelude if I had one.
I have a live and let live attitude. It’s a nice car and if someone is willing to spend $60,000, live long and prosper. The real sin is that it will never be driven. If I had money my weakness would be good quality drivers.
This is absolute peak Honda. Should have bought one of these when new, but as a still recent college grad I went the safe? used route instead. For less than that $26k amount in 2001 I owned a ’96 V8 Thunderbird, ’94 SHO 5 speed and an ’89 Cherokee 4.0L. I do remember liking these a lot though.
Having owned and driven an older Prelude XE when I was stationed outside Tokyo in the early 90s – I’d much prefer to own a new-condition Prelude from the 2nd Gen onwards than any of the alternatives mentioned in the 2nd paragraph, particularly this one.
No mention of being able to play through 7 CDs without a CD cartridge tho?
C’Mon Man!
For $60k I’m 100% certain I’d have more fun owning this car than I would a Nissan Z or any Civic, and I have many, many CDs. I get it, though I probably ought to seek treatment for it.
The thing I think about, though, is for that money I can get a very nice 2001 911 Turbo or a near perfect 944 Turbo. But, hey, that’s what *I’d* buy, and I sure can’t hate the next person for buying the car that makes them giggle. If you’ve got $60K with which to do dumb car things, congrats and very best wishes to you, chapeau.
One night in about 1996 I was driving from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to Washington, D.C. I had my mandatory Marine Corps sticker in the back window of my (then-small) Tacoma in the officially mandated lower left position. A new fifth generation Prelude came SCREAMING by me, and I was already hustling. I looked over and thought “I think I should know who that was.”
Then a Chrysler New Yorker came blowing by me, working to keep up with the Prelude, with a fancy Marine Corps seal on the bumper. The elegant lady driving it waved pleasantly to me in the dark, and maybe a little apologetically. Her license plate said “30TH CMC.”
General Mundy had been retired as 30th Commandant of the Marine Corps for a year or so at that point, had excellent taste in cars and wives, and after 40-ish years in uniform clearly no longer GAF. Bravo Zulu, sir.
At least, that’s how I remember it.
“Chapeau” ? Is that a real American idiom?Asking as a French guy.
It’s mostly a French bicycle racing term, standing in for “A tip of the cap to show respect.” Probably not very useful from me in this place and a bad habit.
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/cyclists-say-chapeau-asked-google-weve-got-answer-plus-french-terms-peloton-387016
Here in France it’s commonly used. I didn’t know it made in English speaking countries and I ignored cycling was responsible for it. Thank you, I’ll go to sleep a little smarter today!
I assumed you knew it, I wrote it out for other readers. It gets used in the cycling community here, with a little football and F1 added in. It’s not especially common in American English, I guess, I’m just excited that the TdF is starting next week!
Thing is, you could get a good condition, moderately used Prelude SH for $10k or less and get the exact same driving experience, but be $50k richer.
This car is only worth $60k as a collector’s item and I’d argue it’s still not even with that much.
My dad had this same car new in Electron Blue. My brothers and I couldn’t believe he bought this thing (had a boring white automatic base Prelude and a stick 4-banger Accord coupe before this).
This car was awesome and the VTEC really kicked in on this one. Handling was better than a front-driver had any right to be. It felt light weight, rev happy, and torquey. A buddy of mine still has his 2000 Civic Si he bought new and in the same blue as my dad’s Prelude. While it revs higher it doesn’t punch like the Prelude did.
Is it worth $60k though? Where are you going to find a nicer one for cheaper?
In this condition and for this model – a sound YES.
If I had money to throw away, I’d buy it. Should I later change my mind, all I’ll need would be to find someone as crazy as myself to sell it to.
This is the crest of Honda’s design, just before it plunged down to shit to never fully recover (and no, despite my absolute love and commitment to the s2000, it was not as beautiful looking as it could be made to look).
A very good friend owned a non SH example on 1999. I had an Integra at the time and preferred his Prelude. It was a very nice FWD sports coupe. The exterior was classy. The interior was somewhat spartan. The nose felt very dialed in and planted. Having a 2.2L meant it had decent amounts of grunt before VTEC kicked in, yo. But is the Prelude an icon? A legend? Something to aspire to? Is it Honda at its best? Nah, but it’s a nice car. Certainly not $60,000 nice though.