2026 Honda Prelude interior!
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From these photos, it is obvious Honda has chosen to spend the least amount of money on the new 2026 Prelude. Unfortunately, that interior is almost exactly the same as the current Civic. A car that came out over 4 years ago…
Except for a few small changes, the dashboard looks exactly the same, and so does the steering wheel. In this Japanese market model, the Civic shifter has been replaced by an electronic unit. Similar to what we find in some other Hondas. However, it seems the Civic and Accord went back to the regular-looking shifter in the past years. At least in the US.
We’ll have to wait and see what we get over here.
The console is seemingly all-new, now including that new “S+” drive mode.
The front seats are indeed new, and look very nice. However, that flat and tiny rear bench looks more like an afterthought than a real back seat. This also could change for the North American market.
But the best news is the big hatchback you can see in these 2 images above. I discovered this last year at the Auto Show by looking really closely at the interior through the very darkly tinted windows.
While the hatchback will make the car much more appealing, there seems to be zero headroom for eventual backseat passengers. The whole thing does feel less roomy than the previous Honda Civic Coupe. Which I guess might not be a problem for a car that could be competing mostly with the Toyota GR86 in the US. Which is not the roomiest coupe in the world…
Still, it is a big disappointment to see the Civic interior being once again repurposed on a new model. The H-RV, Accord, and C-RV all have almost the same interior design. Which dates back to June 2021, when the recurrent Civic came out. And it really starts looking old.
I really thought Honda would put more effort into the Prelude interior…
In fairness, the original Prelude interiors weren’t very different from the Civic either. Back in the 80s and 90s they shared almost everything. If Honda had made it a low-volume specialty car with no shared tech, it would’ve been a sales disaster. All the other Japanese brands tried that approach with their sports cars, and sales were so atrocious that nobody can find JDM sports cars anymore because they just about permanently pulled the plug on them.
Honda is smart not to make it a specialty vehicle with lots of tech that is exclusive to one model, because that’s how they keep it at a reasonable price. They may also be kitbashing and borrowing from the parts bin on a preproduction build until the real interior is finalized, so when the other models get refreshed interiors, the Prelude will follow.
The US will likely see different materials inside. It looks like Honda has removed the full width cheese grater and there’s enough difference to make it stand apart. But we’ll have to wait to see. There will be parts sharing – and to be honest, I’m surprised to see a coupe of any kind from Honda. I hope it sells well, so maybe Acura can reconsider their terrible Integra 5door design.
I sure hope the Prelude we’re getting has a different interior than this. In these photos, the dashboard is completely lacking in symmetry. It’s a lot of stuff thrown into a jumble – with absolutely no flow. Honda should take a cue from Mazda with it’s interior designs. Mazda is doing an amazing job with their interiors (and yet is still able to keep the price reasonable).
It will need a digital rear view mirror as visibility seems to suffer out back. I would imagine the US spec model would need rear head rests for whiplash concerns.
I’m convinced that the only reason this is called Prelude is so Honda doesn’t lose the trademark on the name. A hatchback version of a Civic coupe used to be called an Acura Integra/RSX.