Honda Prelude

FIRST UK DRIVE Retro reboots are all the rage today and the latest to get in on the act is Honda. We try its reborn coupé on British roads

- Tom Jervis

RETRO revivals are one of the biggest trends in the car industry right now - along with the seemingly obligatory LED lightbars, and a renewed focus on hybridisation as buyer interest for EVs lags behind expectations.

The new Honda Prelude is the product of all of these things: it restores the 'Prelude' lineage after two decades of absence, and is based on the same full-hybrid architecture as the latest version of the evergreen Civic. Oh, and it has a sleek-looking rear lightbar, too.

On that point, the Prelude's styling is probably its biggest selling point; with its designers given a brief based around the concept of 'gliding', only an eel doused in butter could be considered more slippery. Don't like it? The new Honda's swooping lines can be interrupted by the £1,390 Black Pack, which includes black badging, a front splitter and a rather pronounced rear spoiler. We prefer the less fussy look of the car without these styling flourishes, but that's personal preference.

The Prelude enters what is a pretty lonely sector of the market these days; the number of traditional two-door coupé models has steeply declined over the last decade as manufacturers continue to place an ever-greater emphasis on crossovers and SUVs. Apart from the BMW 2 Series, there isn't much left in the affordable, driver-focused coupé segment.

As mentioned, the Prelude has much in common with the Honda Civic, deploying that car's 181bhp 2.0-litre petrol-hybrid powertrain. The 0-62mph sprint takes a claimed 8.2 seconds - more than half a second slower than the equivalent BMW 220i - even if the initial burst of acceleration does feel a smidge faster given the instant torque from the electric motor.