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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This is the perfect opportunity for Toyota to field a Prius against the new Prelude.
“…radio host Christ Evans.” Hilarious.
Psst – hey, Honda? I’ve got two words for you, whether they are necessary for the rules of this race series or not:
“Homologation special.”
A 21st century Japanese version of a 1969 Dodge Daytona Charger would not suck.
Well, now that I have popped my eyeballs back into their sockets without damaging the optic nerves, I have to figure how I can watch Super GT races, because the series sounds very cool.
Thomas, your vivid description of the front end might keep me up tonight. But am I alone in saying the rear end looks very Porsche-like? Down to the font they used for “Predlude-GT.”
Anyway, this car also feels very NASCAR car like the Camry, where a nominally FWD car vehicle becomes a RWD beast.
Is there a racing series anywhere in the world where cars run bone-stock (including the OEM tires) and “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” could actually be a thing? Me hopes so, but me thinks not. And I would be so happy to be wrong.
Funny you bring up the point in your last paragraph, when I have been complaining for decades that the ‘SC’ in “NASCAR” should mean something, that it has not stood for in way too long.
MAKE STOCK CAR RACING STOCK AGAIN.
The AGAIN makes it sound almost Trumpian.
That aside, I’m in total agreement with you. I think the races would be so much more interesting to watch if it was that way. Imagine the variety of cars running against each other!
I’m not an expert, but it seemed when it first started, it was a bunch of hot-rodded bootlegger boys running what they brung. But that was about the time I was born and now it bears no resemblance to that.
And if it was your own personal car, you might be a little less interested in banging into each other.
But that also suggests a new series. The PITT 300. Drivers just try to spin each other out. All in black and white Chargers and Explorers. Maybe an occasional Crown Vic and a beat-up old CHP Dodge Polara.
I wish I had the money to produce something like that!
Well, considering that was a direct pun on his best known phrase, then yeah, it did sound Trumpian.
ThatsTheJoke.gif
It was very late when I read it. The all caps should’ve been a give away too.
When I was a kid, I thought the best way to have a racing series was to make it so teams had to buy their cars off of dealer lots, using a blind 3rd party like Consumer Reports does, which meant that if a manufacturer wanted to put a special extra spicy version of their car out to win races, they had to build enough that there would always be some in stock!
Super GT races are on youtube, not much English commentary though.
All the cars in the top class (GT500) are carbon tubs running 2.0L turbo engines, very much another version of stock cars.
Yet another amazing car we won’t get in Gran Turismo.
Yes. This is my only complaint.
So Honda does realize the RWD is right for a performance machine.
Yet they gave us a two door FWD Prius as the next Prelude.
1. The Prelude has always been FWD.
2. SuperGT regulations mandate an FR layout.
1. The Prelude has always been FWD.
They haven’t made a Prelude in over two decades. It’s not like there is any sort of continuous history that must be honored.
The Corvette is now MR, and that’s a car that did have a long unbroken history of FR machines. This new Prelude sounds more like the spiritual successor to the old V6 Accord coupe than a sports car.
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.
So you make the street version out of the same steel and aluminum or whatever as the one they’re already planning to build.
You’re not wrong about the speed bumps. I have a friend with a 2019-2021 (I think) Audi S4 and even it, crawling over some of the speed bumps around Boston, makes cringey noises. And it’s stock. No lowering or anything stupid for a street-legal car.
AFAIK, nothing has been damaged other than the rust-coating they might do on the components that do scrape. He has ramps, so there’s probably some spray or brush on fix for that.