- Remember when you were young
and you always had that one favorite dish from your mom
that she would make pretty much once a quarter,
maybe if you got good grades,
you know, like the S in satisfactory,
or something like that?
It just made you feel good,
like it was butter noodles with hamburger meat,
like a sandwich-style thing,
or maybe it was like your favorite tacos, you know.
And pretty much, it was the bomb.
And it will remain the second best thing
I'll probably eat for the rest of my life,
short next to R-A-M-A-N.
(off key recorder music)
You know what I'm saying?
Anyway, that sort of feeling exists in the car world.
A car that has always been there
as one of the favorites of the car scene.
A car that, just like its brother, the Civic,
is just a car you can look at and say,
"I wouldn't mind throwing one of those right on the ground"
"you know, just put her right on the doozies"
"and call her good."
Okay, I'm Alex, Alex.fi on Instagram,
and today, ladies and gentlemen,
we're gonna be talking about one of the most influential
tuner cars of the late 20th century.
A car that was, and has continued to be,
a car that will never let you down
because it's a Honda, all right?
And will pretty much always be in style
because it's also a Honda
and they just kinda did that really well, all right.
Today, ladies and gentlemen,
we're gonna be sitting down and talking
about you wanting to own a Honda Prelude.
(upbeat music)
(engine revs)
And if this is the first time watching one of our videos,
hi, there.
This is a wave thing,
Dakota does the wave thing, it's really uncomfortable.
(saxophone music)
- All right I'm gonna go.
- But don't forget to subscribe
so we can keep making banging videos like this,
and if you're looking for after-market wheels, tires,
or suspension for your newly-acquired Honda Prelude,
or any other car that you could possibly have out there,
be sure to hit us up over at fitmentindustries.com.
And if you're looking to entered in
to win a free set of ESR multi-piece forged wheels
there's gonna be a description link below,
you can pick up one of these T-shirts, a windbreaker,
or a sweatshirt,
every five dollars gets you automatically entered in to win,
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The Honda Prelude was introduced way back in 1978
and stayed alive until 2001.
And originally based off the Honda Accord,
the Prelude was to be the competitor
of the Toyota Celica, the Silvia,
a little bit of an interesting one, that one is,
and the Mitsubishi Eclipse,
which is also a little bit interesting,
seeing that Prelude was a name
that was actually owned by Toyota,
which they had to give rights to Honda to even use,
something about having starstruck names
or something like that.
I guess.
The first generation of the Honda Prelude
was received fairly well.
It was stylized, ahead of its time, and featured a sunroof,
which was powered, okay.
Ain't none of that crank, (Yee-Haw)
peasant (beep) going on in the Prelude, okay,
this thing was powered.
As standard equipment, no less,
which would eventually become the Prelude trademark,
with the iconic styling of the long nose,
the swooping down hood, okay,
you had the tapered rear windows,
the sharp lines, the doors that as you closed,
you pretty much caused an earthquake,
and a short recorder panel. I mean, it was pretty much
just a nice, long nosed, sports car.
And as the generations continued to come out
throughout the 80s and into 1991,
Honda continued to refine the Prelude sports car, okay.
Power would continue to climb,
suspension technology would continue to climb,
and styling began to get more and more refined.
Kinda like that one kid
that had a really weird aesthetic in middle school,
but now in college, is super rocking it,
and you're still there rocking an Under Armor sweatshirt.
(sigh)
As the Prelude began to grow in sales,
the community around the Prelude
and Civic grew with it in tandem.
As the third generation of the Prelude
needs a special mention
because this is when Honda really began to develop
the Prelude into a proper sports car.
You have to remember that back in the 90s,
this was back when every tuner, JDM manufacture
had more money than sense
than what they knew what to do with.
So, Honda was one of those companies,
it carried cues from the NSX,
which was introduced at the same period.
The four wheel-steering came into Prelude,
which was a massive success.
It had a B201 engine
and an even lower hood.
The 1998 Honda Prelude,
two liter, four wheel steering,
would actually go to out perform
every vehicle on the slalom test
with its four wheel steering system,
beating Ferrari, Corvette, all right?
And even Porsche.
They even beat my boy nine one one, okay?
Good on ya, Honda.
And this was something
that Honda was really, really good at.
And in the 90s, when all the Japanese manufacturers
were competing at the same time,
the Prelude was one of those cars
you could jump into, just like the Civic,
and not have to just lose your entire wallet.
And during this time, Honda began tossing around
serious cash at their vehicle development.
They were pretty much loaded, okay?
It makes sense.
So when they jumped into the fourth generation in 1991,
things started to get really serious.
Just like your first college one, that you were
really happy about, worked out really,
really well until you guys decided to go to
different colleges and didn't work out, yeah.
Young love, y'know what I'm saying?
I'm married, I made it through it, thank god.
If I was single now I'd be stuck.
Fourth generation is also when these cars truly started
to get attention in the modifcation community,
because it was the mid-90s, and everyone loved
tuner cars.
However this was a generation that the
Prelude finally made their first mistake.
Okay?
They got, they got, they got, rid of the pop up
headlights.
(sad piano music)
(tires screeching)
It's really unfortunate.
The fourth generation had your typical trims
like the S the SI and even V-Tec,
which would crust the beautiful horse power number
to damn near 200, 200 son.
That was a naturally aspirated four cylinder brother
that could do pretty musch everything you could possibly
want it to do.
And at the same time these generations started to see a ton
of love from the mid-90s after market companies like
Veilside, GReddy, AEM, and all that sorta good stuff
that you guys remember from the
"Fast and the Furious" series,
or maybe when you were before that,
when you're going out on the internet tryna figure
out how you can get parts from Japan to the United States.
Plus the Prelude was reliable, it was spacious,
you could put stuff in the back seats and you could still
drive it every day, and have a car that didn't leave you
stranded on the side of the road.
It was a weird thing that Honda was coming out with,
because they had the NSX which was a super duper
sports car killer, they had the Civic which was just
a banging car to have at the same time, and then you had
a Prelude which was a two door coop of pretty much
the same thing, and it was doing pretty well for it's time,
and against the competition, it really did okay.
But then the Prelude started to lose itself to itself,
like it was competing against itself.
And Honda didn't play no games
when it came to building cars.
Their sixth generation of cord, was doing great.
The sixth gen Civic SI was cheaper than the Prelude.
And the S2000 was more sport oriented and captured
a higher end market.
Where Prelude was left now was like the weird
middle child, but didn't have any sort
of extraordinary gift,
it was just pretty much okay at everything,
and from the, y'know, ages of 13 to 18 the Prelude
just felt, y'know, invisible.
And it just didn't do very well in terms of
overall performance of sales, as the car continued
to go into generations, it began to decline.
So Honda gave it one last shot with their fifth
generation Prelude, even though the company was
aware it would ultimately get phased out.
To make space for the Intergra.
The fifth generation Honda Prelude,
would be made for 1997 to 2001.
And would mark the era of
the Honda Prelude sports car.
It featured a square body style, signature low hood,
and standard 200 horse power,
from two different trim options,
depending on how much money you had in your wallet.
Okay, Well the front end had a dated thing going on with it,
it's a little bit to today's standards.
The lifted rear and it's still an iconic style
that had become one of the like go to styling cues for
a lot of short rear quarter panel sports cars.
I mean it's an absolute booty, it just has it,
when nobody else has got it, Preludes got it.
Y'know what I'm saying? But we're not here to talk about
the history of a Honda Prelude, no you can save that
for Mr Richards class in seventh grade okay?
We're talking about the fact of you wanting to own
a Honda Prelude, okay?
And why, I mean, we're not gonna talk...
We're done talking about why Honda phased it out okay?
I like the Preludes the most out of all the generations
in 1998 but that's just me.
We're here to talk about you wanting to own a Honda Prelude,
so you want one?
All right, well, set down your Motegi and grab your
favorite IPA because we're about to jump into what
it's like to actually own something like this.
Honda's a better car.
Honda Preludes have been a staple in the car community,
with their biggest impact in their last two generations.
Well, the first generation sold way more than the
last two, the longest Prelude of the mid-90s
is pretty much what everybody remembers,
it's what everybody knows, it's what everybody loves,
okay?
It's the specific Honda sports car.
The fifth generation has the most modification
support, some of the largest communities behind it.
Because they are a late 90s JDM car, you can end up
pretty much throwing whatever you want at it.
Whether that be Koenigs, wet sports, work VSS's and
pretty much anything else in terms of wheels,
and for tein coilovers you're pretty much set on some
Nexen tires.
Fitmentindustries.com.
(upbeat music) Throw some air on this car
and you're pretty much set to go,
really the only other thing that you need
on a Prelude is a clean paint job because
these are a little bit older, and because they're more
mass produced, sometimes the paint just isn't that good
on these cars.
Throw all of that stuff together and you have a car
that hardly recognizable as a Honda.
Where high ability is there, and there is absolutely
no slouch in that department.
Some of the biggest issues in the fifth gens though,
are the automatic transmissions.
(clicking)
- [Narrator] When you try and put it in reverse.
(engine splutters)
Makes that noise.
- Well you're gonna wanna just generally stay away.
Any 90s sports car, any of it all, any one that come
with a two door, JDM, comes from Japan,
stay away from the automatic trans.
Just pro-tip, always stay away from them,
because they just,
they try to do so much in terms of tech,
and they just couldn't get it right.
Okay?
They break every 100,000 miles,
especially on the Preludes.
If you're on the fence about picking one up,
make sure you keep an eye on the weather stripping,
the tail light decay and that sorta good stuff
because these cars have a tendency to just leak
water inside of them.
Timing belts need to be done around 120K-ish,
so maintenance records are still important.
If this was a Dug video I'd probably give the Prelude
an eight because,
Preludes slap.
CEO of reliable sports cars, Honda.
Truth be told, the Honda Prelude is a fantastic
daily driver that can be your first step into the
car scene, it's modifiable, it's forgiving,
which is important for people like you, y'know?
And people like me that just really make dumb mistakes
when we jump into the car scene for the first time okay?
They look sharp, and parts aren't that expensive.
They aren't the newest car in world,
nor are they necessarily the fastest,
but they're a car that allows
you to experience a fun, low hood, race car esque experience
that will put a smile on your face when you start
throwing your first mods at it.
All you have to do,
stay away from the automatic.
So what do you think about the Honda Prelude?
Drop your comments below, and don't forget to subscribe.
And if you guys was another episode of this,
let us know in the comment section, what you want us
to talk about.
Because, y'know?
It took 74 renditions of somebody saying Honda Prelude
for us to make the Honda Prelude video!
And we did it.
Okay, just taKes a little bit of time.
So maybe if we get the same vocal comment for another 24
episodes or so, we'll probably drop one of those in there.
And if you're looking for after market wheels tires or
suspense, be sure to check out FitmentIndustries.com,
by the way the one guy that is saying Volvo,
keep on keeping on brother, I see you.
Okay?
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries,
we hope you enjoyed this video,
we will see you later, peace.