We may only be in the final months of waiting for the new Honda Prelude to arrive in showrooms, but its makers aren’t stopping the hype machine anytime soon. While many eagerly await the arrival of a new Honda coupe, some take issue with its hybrid powertrain, its fakery of gears, and the whiff of Toyota Prius to its look. Well, deep in the bowels of Honda Racing, one Prelude has been bulking up, and this carbon-bodied race car is finally ready to show the world what can be done without any semblance of restraint.
To be specific, this is the prototype for Honda’s next entry into Super GT’s GT500 class, Japan’s top level of sports car racing. The racing is long, the cars are fast, and ever since DTM switched over to GT3-style cars, there’s nothing else quite like it. In this elite field, Nissan runs the Fairlady Z Nismo GT500, Toyota runs the GR Supra GT500, and while Honda has run the Civic Type R-GT for the past few years, it’s about to field a coupe again.
Because Super GT GT500 cars are silhouette racers, the Prelude GT shares about as much in common with a regular Prelude as the Captain America Chris Evans shares with the radio host Christ Evans. See, while the regular Prelude is a hybrid, GT500 cars are all powered by turbocharged two-liter four-cylinder engines making 650-ish horsepower. What’s more, these top-level Super GT cars are all rear-wheel-drive, meaning that this pumped-up sport compact is on extra-strong minerals, ready to go full-on Hulk mode.
There’s a very good reason for Honda choosing to turn a Prelude into its next GT500 racer and it has to do with performance. A new set of aerodynamic guidelines take effect for 2026, so why not take advantage of it? While the initial result isn’t vastly more outlandish than the visual effect of the Civic Type R-GT, it’ll still pop your eyeballs straight out of their sockets. Just look at those finned side skirts, that dining table-sized splitter, and all the gills to evacuate heat. It looks like it’ll eat your soul, like a carnivorous cryptid living in your walls, waiting to pounce.
Of course, there’s also the hope that switching to the Prelude brings with it the success that Honda craves. The tops of the podiums during this year’s Super GT season have been dominated by cars from Toyota and Nissan, with the fastest Honda-fielding team sitting seventh in the GT500 team championship.
Beyond Super GT, the Prelude-GT is an oddity. There aren’t many series where it could run, and it would make a wildly impractical wealthy amateur’s track toy, but if someone at Honda is reading this, would it be possible to sneak a couple of Prelude GT500 cars out the back door of the factory? The team at Honda Racing has built something so cool that the people outside of Japan deserve to see it. Maybe “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” is less relevant than ever, but you know, rule of cool and all that. Even just putting it on an auto show stand would blow people’s minds clean off, and that’s a halo effect worth splashing the marketing dollars on.
Top graphic image: Honda
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Make a few aero changes and throw in a V8, NASCAR Prelude.
I’d be happy with a detuned version of this car with, say 400hp, and some other modifications to make it road-legal and able to drive over speed bumps, and you have a sales winner on your hands. Could easily sell these at $60k all day long.
brother its a carbon tub car with carbon everything, IF they were somehow able to make one street legal its not being sold for less than $500k.