Honda Sold Just 174 Preludes In Its First Full Month On Sale In The U.S.

The Honda Prelude occupies a strange place in the automotive market. It's not quite sporty enough to compete against stuff like the Subaru BRZ and Mazda Miata, but it's also too impractical to go head-to-head against 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 tough sell, and the market seems to realize this issue. That's why, in its first full month on sale in the U.S., Honda managed to sell just 174 Preludes. No matter how you slice it, that's not great.

Overall, Honda says it has sold 204 Preludes in the U.S. since it went on sale in November of 2025, and it's hard to argue that sales are low because production is ramping up. A quick look on Autotrader shows that there are currently 221 brand new Preludes for sale in the U.S. right now, so the supply is there, but the demand may not be. Not helping matters, of course, is the fact that some dealers are throwing markups on these cars. CarScoops reported on one case of a Prelude being priced at over $60,000, and there are over 30 Preludes listed on Autotrader right now that are at least a few grand over MSRP — some are priced at $10,000 over. That's going to hurt demand.

When you look at sports car competition, things remain rather bleak for the Prelude. In December, Subaru sold 229 BRZs, Toyota sold 576 GR86s and Mazda sold 482 MX-5 Miatas. Hell, the far more expensive Toyota Supra even outsold the Prelude with 277 units. Keep in mind, all of these cars have been on sale for a lot longer than the Prelude.

I've driven the Honda Prelude, and I really enjoyed my — admittedly — brief time with it. The little 200-horsepower hybrid coupe does a really good job of being tossibly fun while also efficient. Sure, it's not very quick in a straight line, but the commenters have been telling me for years that slow car fast is better than fast car slow. My main gripe with the car, which seems to be the same one many folks have, is that it costs so much money, and I've gotta assume that's 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 over $5,600 less in Canada, but because we've got President Donald Trump's 15% tariff to contend with here, we pay more. At the time, a Honda spokesperson told me, "The U.S. and Canada are different markets and the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is set independently in each market for a new vehicle based on a number of factors including import costs, duties, exchange rates, etc."

We'll never know for sure, but it's definitely possible that if November 2024's election went differently, the Prelude may have cost less, and — in turn — Honda might have been able to move a damn slight more than 174 units in December. Unfortunately, we'll never know, and really, that's the least of our worries.