An engineering thesis disguised as a coupe: A history of the Honda Prelude

Offered through 1996, this generation also marked the end of an experiment. Four-wheel steering, once the Prelude’s technological calling card, unceremoniously disappeared. It’s an omen of what is to come.

A final shot over the bow

When the fifth-generation Prelude arrived for 1997, its styling felt like a compromise between eras, a return to Honda’s earlier angular discipline, slightly softened to align with late-1990s tastes. It looked modern but cautious. And beneath the sheet metal, something had changed.

For the first time in years, the Prelude’s ambitions narrowed. There was a single engine: a 195 hp (145 kW) 2.2 L four-cylinder, paired with a five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic. The menu was simplified, perhaps strategically.

Four-wheel steering was gone. In its place came Type SH, fitted with Honda’s Active Torque Transfer System, or ATTS. It consisted of electromechanical clutches designed to send additional torque to the outside front wheel during a turn to sharpen turn-in and approach the balance of rear-wheel drive. Today, we call it torque vectoring. Then, it’s a costly, heavy experiment that proved too clever for its own good. Few buyers opted in. And so, the Prelude faded away.

In June 2001, after selling 826,082 Preludes in the United States, Honda ended production. The car peaked in 1986, when 79,841 examples found buyers. After that, demand slipped steadily, squeezed by competition from within, particularly the Accord Coupe, Civic Coupe, and Acura Integra, and by a market pivoting decisively toward sport-utility vehicles. By the first five months of 2001, just 3,500 Preludes were sold. The car that once served as Honda’s technological calling card exited quietly. It was less a failure than a casualty of shifting appetites, as its innovations were absorbed into the mainstream that it helped shape.

The Prelude’s second chance

And now, roughly 25 years later, Honda has revived the Prelude, less a sentimental callback than a calculated move in an auto industry that no longer resembles the one the Prelude left behind.