Affordable Excellence

Author's Rating:

Pros: A long list of standard luxury features. Solid peppy engine. An excellent used car.

Cons: Short list of safety features. Poor sound quality.

Handling And Control:

The Bottom Line: 
The Honda Prelude is an excellent sport coupe, it comes equipped with a long list a standard features and a peppy engine.

Author's Review
Honda Prelude 2001

Affordable Excellence

Honda has been selling this Prelude style for four years, sales are strong so why change anything? The only thing Honda did for 2001 is to stop production of the SH version and replaced it with a less expensive Special Edition.

The Prelude is Honda's best selling sport coupe. The reason Honda stop making the SH is that the base model is so well equipped that it is hard to sell an up graded model for $2,500.00 more when only a few extras features can be added.

One of the strong points of the Prelude is its 4-cylinders peppy engine that produces 200 horsepower. Few cars in that category can boost about the same about their engines.

I was surprised to see how easy it was for me to enter this sport coupe, I had thought that I would have had to squeeze in.

The interior of the basic Prelude model is loaded with standard equipment, you have air conditioning, power windows, power locks, power mirrors, tilt steering, cruise control, heated seats, AM/FM cassette radio, CD player, sunroof, rear window defrost and alloy wheels. A very long list of standard features for such an affordable car.

From the driver's seat you have an excellent all around exterior vision, all the gages are easy to read and all the controls buttons are within reach. In the front you will have enough leg and headroom to be comfortable, but for the back seat it is a little tighter.

The sound quality coming from the speakers was not as expected, maybe there was a defect in one of them, something to look for if anyone decides to buy a prelude.

From the exterior Prelude has style and class it is a beautiful sport coupe. I really liked the styling of the alloy wheels they looked very nice. The trunk space is a little restricted at only 9 cubic feet of volume that is to be expected in a sporty automobile.

The Honda Prelude I drove had was powered with a 2.2 liters, 4-cylinders motor that developed 200 horsepower at 7000 RPM.. The transmission was a 5-speed manual transmission. It had 4-wheel disc brakes.

The Prelude is a fine car to drive on both the highway and within city streets. I am a little disappointed by the short list of safety features especially when comparing with the long list of standard features.