I Drove Two Honda Type R Legends To See If The Prelude Deserves The Hate

Why Do People Hate The Prelude?

The fifth-generation Honda Prelude ended production in October 2001. Honda sold 9,462 of them in its final sales year, falling just shy of the S2000’s numbers (9,682 units). Even the Integra and RSX from Honda’s Acura division both outsold it that year with 13,736 and 16,401 units, respectively.

Nearly a quarter-century later, the nameplate has returned, but car enthusiasts don’t appear to be thrilled about it based on what we see from online feedback. The virulent comments towards the Prelude stem toward one major area: the powertrain.

Where’s The Manual?

The sixth-generation Prelude arrives without one of Honda’s most iconic features, a manual transmission. In fact, it doesn’t have a transmission at all. This car shares a two-motor hybrid system with the Civic, meaning the 2.0-liter gasoline engine under the hood rarely drives the wheels except under specific circumstances such as highway cruising speeds. Electric motors propel the car, while the engine supplies power for a small battery.

If you mash the brake and the throttle to get the quickest possible launch, the engine will pick one rpm and stay there to optimize power, making it sound like the Prelude has a continuously variable transmission. If you drive it normally, the engine bounces up and down, mimicking the redline of a car with a geared transmission.

Honda also created a new S+ mode, which more accurately fakes the feeling of an eight-speed transmission. The Prelude even has the same paddle shifters found in an Acura. S+ tells the engine to rev up and down, fooling the driver’s brain into thinking there is a transmission when there really isn’t. Is it the perfect replacement for the slickest affordable manual on the market? Perhaps not. But it’s a neat idea.

Grand Sport Of Honda

We get it; enthusiasts are upset because the Prelude does not have Honda’s lovely manual transmission and it does not produce any more power or torque than the standard Civic Hybrid. But on the bright side, it does have the same front suspension, adaptive dampers, and brakes from the Civic Type R, and that equipment adds up for some seriously sporty handling.

There are four selectable drive modes: Comfort, GT, Sport, and Individual. Honda says this car is tuned softer than the Acura Integra Type S, so it leans into the GT billing. Fans wanted a two-door Type R, but that’s not what Honda built. It’s not like Honda’s decision was without precedent, since the Prelude never spawned a Type R variant in any of its previous iterations.

We’ve seen many complaints about the Prelude’s $42,000 starting MSRP, criticizing it for only having 200 hp at that price. However, Honda is not the only automaker to charge a premium for a handling upgrade with no power pump. The Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport costs $88,495, a whopping $15,000 more than the base Stingray despite having the same 6.7-liter V8 engine. Honda even gives you an entire different body for the roughly $7,000 premium over a Civic Hybrid Hatchback. And yet, no one is mad about the Grand Sport’s price.

Visiting Honda’s Legends

Autoblog had a chance to drive two of the most legendary Type R models of all time, courtesy of Auto Vault Orlando, a car storage facility in Central Florida. This blast from the past gave us the perfect opportunity to find out if Honda truly made a mistake with the new Prelude, or if all of the vitriol is unearned.

We began with the Acura Integra Type R, the first Type R model to make its way to North America in 1997. This is often regarded as one of the best front-wheel-drive cars of all-time, and thanks to its VTEC four-cylinder engine with a screaming 8,500-rpm redline, that reputation is well-earned. It’s light, agile, and feels like a buzzy bee. Get it up near that redline, and it vibrates like toddler that’s had way too much sugar.

But it’s also a normally aspirated car with only 130 lb-ft of torque, and you need to rev it to extract every once of them. Online commenters may laugh that the new Prelude only produces five more hp than the Integra Type R, but torque has risen by over 100 lb-ft. That matters off-the-line. The five-speed manual in this car was decent, but Honda hadn’t reached the point of greatness by this point just yet. And while those vibrations are fun for a spirited back road blast, if Acura tried to sell this car again today, critics would likely blast it for being horribly loud.

The Integra Type R was a fun car, but Acura only sold about 2,700 of them in the US, and every future Acura performance car was badged as a Type S. Honda kept going with Type R models in Japan and other markets, including a replacement for the Integra that we never got (except as the RSX Type S), the Accord Euro R, and several Civic Type R variants.

Honda did not give us another taste of Type R until 2027 when the first turbocharged model, the Fk8, finally landed stateside. We had a chance to drive the final iteration called the Limited Edition, built as a final send-off for the 2021 model year. Only 600 were made, all finished in Phoenix Yellow, getting a 50-pound weight reduction, stickier tires, and other tuning changes.

This Type R was a beast, the quickest FWD car around the Nürburgring when it debuted. It cemented Honda’s reputation for having the best manual at any price point and thanks to adaptive suspension, it was comfortable enough to use as a daily driver. This time around, the Type R stuck around for another generation, the FL5, and spawned a reborn version of the Integra Type R, this time called the Type S. Sadly, this Type R LE doesn’t get driven much because the owner of the collection hates the seats, and finds them unbearable over long distances.

Worshiping A False History

The Integra Type R and Civic Type R are both incredibly fun vehicles, each with their own variably deal-breaking faults. We think the Integra Type R would be a fun weekend car, but its lack of modern amenities, low torque, and harsh vibrations would make it an unideal recipe to use when creating a new vehicle like the Prelude.

As for the Civic Type R, it feels far more modern thanks to its turbocharged engine and touchscreen with Apple CarPlay, and it still has one of the finest manual transmissions available at any price. The new Prelude is more comfortable, both because of its seats and how its adaptive dampers are tuned. Comparing these cars was an enjoyable exercise but we can not stress this enough; Honda never made a Prelude Type R.

It’s all well and good to hope Honda creates something new, but after driving the Prelude together with these Type R models, we see there is no link between them. The Integra and Civic are meant to make your hands tingle as their engines and transmission create a connection between the driver and the pavement. The Prelude is a cruiser, built to comfortably but quickly scoot around corners.

Is that exactly what the internet wanted? Clearly not. But the same people complaining about a $42,000 Prelude probably wouldn’t spend even more on a Type R-powered one, right? If what you really want is a fun Honda vehicle with over 300-hp and a manual transmission, there are currently two of them available: the Civic Type R and Integra Type S.