At long last, we know how much the 2026 Honda Prelude is going to set buyers back if they want to get behind the wheel of the mildly hot hybrid coupe. Folks are going to have to hand over $43,195, including a destination charge of $1,195, for the little bastard child (complimentary) of a Civic Type R and a Civic Hybrid wrapped in a pretty coupe body. I know, that's probably a bit higher than you would have liked, but at the very least it's fully loaded right from the get-go.
The 2026 Prelude comes in just one "well-equipped" trim level, and there aren't many options. It will be available in five colors: gray, black, red, blue or white (with either a black or body color roof). Then there are two interior color combinations, either plain black or a nice two-tone with blue and white. Honda hasn't said if any of these options will cost any extra, but a quick look at the Civic Type R configurator shows that Boost Blue Pearl is a $455 option. All of the other colors aren't shared between the two cars, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few that cost extra on the Prelude.
Honda says there are a handful of accessories that can be added to the Prelude to make it more your own. It's nothing crazy, but buyers can add things like 19-inch machine-finished black wheels, a black decklid spoiler, front underbody spoilers, and black emblems and side mirror covers. I'm not much of a blacked-out accessory guy, so I'd skip that stuff, but I also don't have 43 large to spend on a car right now.
Honda
I know, I know. $43,195 sounds a bit steep for a compact coupe with a hybrid motor, but I promise that the Prelude comes to the table with some serious kit. Of course, you've got to look at the starting prices of the two Civics it shares parts with. The Civic Hybrid starts at $30,490 and the Civic Type R starts at $47,090, both including destination. So, at 43-and-change, the Prelude is somewhere in the middle, but admittedly closer to the Type R.
That being said, the Prelude has more standard features than a base Civic Hybrid. The 2.0-liter inline-four Atkinson Cycle hybrid system with two electric motors, producing 200 horsepower and 232 pound-feet of torque, is identical, but it gets Honda trick new S+ Shift system, which does a great job of faking shifts up and down the rev range. While it's a bit silly, it does make for a far more fun driving experience than the Civic Hybrid, and it still gets 46 mpg city, 41 mpg highway and 44 mpg combined, according to Honda.
The Prelude also gets a lot of the Civic Type R's underpinnings, most notably its dual-axis strut front suspension and adaptive dampers, both of which are specially tuned for the coupe, and it also shares its four-piston front Brembo brakes with the Type R. Additionally, the Prelude gets 19-inch all-season tires as standard (with summers as an option), four drive modes, and a flat-bottomed leather-wrapped steering wheel with paddle shifters that are actually made of metal.
Honda
It's not just the performance, either. Honda also gave the Prelude plenty of tech features that are meant to give the Prelude a bit more of a GT character, something I think the little coupe is definitely going to excel at once we get it out on the open road. The Prelude comes standard with a 10.2-inch digital gauge cluster and a 9-inch center infotainment screen that can be hooked up wirelessly to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both appear to be lifted straight out of the Civic, and both work exactly as well as you'd expect. The car also comes with a WiFi hotspot, a wireless phone charger, an eight-speaker Bose sound system and Honda's suite of driver-assist technology, which is very solid in other applications.
Listen, I know that you're all very freaked out that there is a "4" at the beginning of this car's price. I get it, but that's just the reality of the world these days. I don't love it, either, but there's not much that we can do about it. In any case, Honda seems to know people might be a bit dismayed about the price, so a spokesperson actually took the time to point out that the Prelude today is actually cheaper than it was in 2001, when adjusted for inflation. Back then, it cost $23,600, or about $43,776 in 2025. I suppose Honda gets some credit for that, but it really gets credit for making a genuinely unique entrant in a market that is growing worryingly homogeneous.
