HONDA PRELUDE

Yes, it really is a new cheap sports coupé - but there's a zeitgeisty twist

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When Honda announced that it was going to make a new Prelude, you would have been forgiven for assuming it was going to be another crossover and not taking much notice, just to avoid disappointment. Such things do happen. Yet even though SUVs have replaced coupés for many as the moderately fashionable daily driver, Honda really was going to breathe new life into the mainstream two-door.

Picking up the tradition from the early 2000s as if nothing had changed, Honda's new coupé is based on a mid-sized hatchback. Given the Accord has long been absent from Europe, the Civic was the starting point.

As a hatchback, it's already an understatedly handsome car that's pretty good to drive, which is promising. The coupé then gets a shorter wheelbase and suspension that has been tightened up with the help of some Type R-flavoured bits (they're not literally from the Civic Type R, since the mounting and geometry is different).

Chief among those are the dual-axis front struts, which reduce torque steer and give more feedback, the adaptive dampers and the solid rather than fluid-filled compliance bushes for the rear axle. In general, the setup is softer than on the Civic Type R, because this needs to be a liveable daily driver first. The Prelude's whole structure is also stiffer than the Civic's.