The name Prelude has stood for a design of rare subtlety since the 1980s. Complexity is all too often used to disguise poor packaging. However, Honda has provided simplicity of line in every generation of the earlier coupé. The Honda team already opted for understatement in the first generation Prelude. Lines and proportions have simple surfacing and a clear three-box design. The cabin is elegantly set back in the wheelbase. Subtle chrome work around the DLO and DRG completes the whole. As a first sketch, the second generation Prelude must have been very quiet. As a clay model it may even have seemed unfinished – that’s how reduced this design is. This beautifully proportioned coupé, not least known in the Netherlands by an unnamed TV duo, is a true design understatement. However, the beautiful long and especially very flat nose, cab rearward positioning of the passenger compartment and the horizontal approach of the entire design can now rightly be called iconic. In the early 1990s, the third generation Prelude made its debut. Once again, almost excessive simplicity and purity of line are the main themes. It is a three-dimensional iteration of the car from the 1980s, with slightly more volume in the bodywork. But otherwise an exercise in reduction. Once again, a long, flat nose has been applied, as well as a rearward-positioned passenger compartment with a horizontally oriented design of graphics. At the end of the 1990s, the last Prelude for the time being appeared, with a design characterized by a shape spectrum whose history and bloodline can be traced exactly. Purity of form is once again the core idea. There are no rubbing strips on the side of the bodywork and no line is sculpted too much into the body. The bonnet line is still flat. The bottom of the window line is slightly curved and not straight – as the two almost parallel lines on the side of the bodywork are. The boot is slightly higher than the rest of the body. The lights are a bit out of place compared to their predecessors. This car looks out at the world through somewhat surprised, vertical and elongated units. Apart from that, it is essentially exactly like previous models: pure and almost monolithic, but also afflicted with a clear Japanese lightness. Fast forward to 2024. The name Prelude may have only been applied to the car after the design process was completed, but – even if that were the case – the design team would have done well to have brought the brand’s strong heritage in compact coupes to the fore in the design of this now very nondescript car. New Prelude no longer a three-box design, incomprehensible! Unfortunately, the new design does not have the unique subtleties that were so characteristic of the previous models. The nose in particular shows a lot of forced complexity, which the poor packaging tries to conceal. The enormous overhang at the front, high nose, somewhat chaotic lines, proportions and surfacing cannot distract from this. The fact that the three-box design principle has been abandoned is also remarkable. To make matters worse, the cabin is not set back, but forward, against the front wheel arch. Never has the dash-to-axle ratio of a Prelude been so bad. Nothing reminds us of the beautifully proportioned coupes that preceded this namesake. This is not a better iteration of the recipe. Apart from the name, there is no link to the bloodline to be found. Not even when the Honda team takes a picture of them together. The Prelude deserves better.
Source: www.autoweek.nl
