Honda sold only 174 Preludes in their first full month on sale in the US – Jalopnik

The Honda Prelude occupies a strange place in the car market. It’s not quite sporty enough to compete with the likes of the Subaru BRZ and Mazda Miata, but it’s also too impractical to take on other compact hybrids like the Toyota Prius and Hyundai Elantra. When you add in the fact that it starts at $43,195, including destination, the Prelude becomes a bit of a hard sell, and the market seems to be realizing this problem. That’s why Honda only managed to sell 174 Preludes in its first full month on sale in the US. Any way you slice it, that’s not great.

Overall, Honda says it has sold 204 Preludes in the US since it went on sale in November 2025, and it’s hard to argue that sales are low because production is increasing. Just a quick look Car dealer shows that there are currently 221 brand new Preludes for sale in the US, so the supply is there, but the demand may not be. What doesn’t help matters, of course, is the fact that some dealers are throwing surcharges on these cars. Car shoveling reported on one case where a Prelude cost over $60,000, and there are over 30 Preludes listed on Car dealer right now those are at least a few thousand above MSRP – some cost $10,000 more. That will hurt demand.

Looking at the sports car competition, things remain quite bleak for the Prelude. In December, Subaru sold 229 BRZs, Toyota sold 576 GR86s and Mazda sold 482 MX-5 Miatas. The much more expensive Toyota Supra even outsold the Prelude by 277 units. Keep in mind that all of these cars have been on sale for much longer than the Prelude.

I’ve been riding the Honda Prelude and I’ve admittedly really enjoyed my short time with it. The small hybrid coupe with 200 hp does a great job of being both fun and efficient. Sure, it’s not very fast in a straight line, but the commentators have been telling me for years that a slow car that’s fast is better than a fast car that’s slow. My biggest problem with the car, which seems to be the same as a lot of people, is that it costs so much money, and I have to assume this is hurting sales.

To be fair to Honda, the fact that the Prelude costs so much isn’t entirely its fault. As I previously reported, the Prelude costs more than $5,600 less in Canada, but because we’re dealing with President Donald Trump’s 15% tariff here, we’re paying more. At the time, a Honda spokesperson told me, “The US and Canada are different markets and the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is determined independently for a new vehicle in each market based on a number of factors including import costs, duties, exchange rates, etc.”

We’ll never know for sure, but it’s certainly possible that if the November 2024 election had gone differently, the Prelude might have cost less, and — in turn — Honda might have moved just over 174 units in December. Unfortunately, we’ll never know, and that’s really the least of our worries.