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Two years after the concept was shown in Tokyo, Honda Australia locks in the reborn Prelude coupe for local showrooms arriving in mid-2026.
Honda Australia has confirmed its Prelude sports coupe will be sold in Australia from mid-2026, but key details like powertrain and price still remain a mystery.
Speaking to local media, Honda Australia General Manager of Automotive Robert Thorp said the resurrected Prelude is expected to renew interest in the brand, and likely to be priced competitively among its sports car peers.
“It’s going to be really unique in the market, there aren’t going to be anything you can say ‘it’s a direct competitor of that’ – it sits in a lot of different spaces,” Thorp said.
“We think we’ll be able to bring a great value package to market.
“We are very confident this will be a model that will attract a lot of interest.”
Opting to revive the Prelude nameplate as a preview “to a new ‘speciality sport’ in the era of electrification”, according to Honda, the sports car will make use of the brand’s e:HEV hybrid powertrain.
Under the bonnet of the Civic, power and torque reach 135kW and 315Nm respectively, but the same-sized engine in the Accord and CR-V ups torque to 335Nm.
Overseas reports indicate Honda is targeting a 154kW output for the Prelude, which would outmuscle the 135kW 2.0-litre Mazda MX-5.
However, rear-drive competitors like the Toyota GR86 and Subaru BRZ twins produce 174kW from a 2.4-litre boxer engine, and offer rear-wheel drive dynamics and a manual gearbox option.
The front-drive Prelude is set to be an automatic-transmission-only affair though, with the model to debut Honda’s new S+ Shift system that aims to capture the “joy of driving” in a hybrid.
The new transmission is designed to better mimic a conventional automatic transmission – able to hold ‘gears’ when cornering and mimic engine sounds via an Active Sound Control system, for example – while still yielding the fuel-saving and smooth operation benefits of a CVT.
Paddle shifters are also fitted on the new Prelude, allowing drivers the do-it-yourself shifting option.
However, despite its coupe body style and sporty looks, the Prelude is not positioned as a direct competitor to the aforementioned Japanese rivals.
“This isn’t going to be the sportiest, zippiest car that’s going to be tossed into the circuits,” Honda Large Project Chief Engineer Tomoyuki Yamagami told Australian media at the Prelude concept’s unveiling two years ago in Tokyo.
It was also at the 2023 Japan Mobility Show where Yamagami first confirmed the prototype would spawn a production version to be made globally in right-hand drive, opening the door for an Australian arrival.
Suspension, Brembo front brakes, and wider front and rear wheel tracks will be taken from the current ‘FL5’ Civic Type R to dial up the sporting characteristics of the Prelude.
As such, the Prelude four-seater is expected be a unique product offering in local showrooms – melding sports car looks without the hard edge and ride compromise typically associated with such cars.
And because of this, Thorp said the 2026 Prelude is expected to have a very “broad appeal”.
“The nature of the model doesn’t fit a market segment really easily – it will from a VFACTS perspective, and price, and all of that,” Thorp said.
“But when we look at the customers we think who will be interested, it’s going to be quite a wide, broad base.
“It could be a sports car person, but we could see older males who owned them in the 90s buy one again, we could see it opening up to a female audience as well because of the way it looks and drives and handles.
“Whilst we think that this is where the customer segment for it might be, we’ve got a sense that actually, it could be quite wide and attract a lot of different people from a lot of areas just by the nature of it.”
However, Honda Australia is still expecting lower customer uptake of the Prelude compared to its more mainstream SUVs, which tracks with the sports car market.
As for where it will be positioned in Australia, Thorp said it was too early to talk pricing of the Prelude, but promised it would be compelling.
With the current Civic Type R priced at $74,100 drive-away, and the Civic e:HEV LX positioned at $55,900, the Prelude is likely to split the difference between the two variants as it borrows elements of both.
If the Prelude wears a sticker price around $65,000 in Australia, it would make it more expensive than top-spec automatic versions of the GR86 (from $46,090 before on-road costs), Subaru BRZ ($50,190), and Mazda MX-5 ($55,810) – though the latter features a retractable hardtop roof for open-air motoring rather than the fixed-roof coupe body style of the rest.
The 2026 Prelude resurrects a nameplate last seen in local showrooms in 2001 that topped out at $50,209, which would – when adjusted for inflation – translate to around $93,600 in 2025.
The new Prelude is also the sixth-generation Honda coupe to wear the name, with the original model launching in Japan in 1978 and the four successive iterations continuing consecutively for 23 years.
Thorp said work on bringing the Prelude has been a long time coming for Honda Australia, and but further details will be locked in closer to its mid-2026 on-sale date.
“While we can’t confirm a lot of model details – we can’t share a lot of stuff, I want to say a lot of things – I think the most important thing is such an iconic nameplate that has such rich brand heritage and history in it, is a model we will be bringing back to Australia.”
Tung Nguyen has been in the automotive journalism industry for over a decade, cutting his teeth at various publications before finding himself at Drive in 2024. With experience in news, feature, review, and advice writing, as well as video presentation skills, Tung is a do-it-all content creator. Tung’s love of cars first started as a child watching Transformers on Saturday mornings, as well as countless hours on PlayStation’s Gran Turismo, meaning his dream car is a Nissan GT-R, with a Liberty Walk widebody kit, of course.
