Three laps. That was all I had behind the wheel of one of 2025’s most hotly debated performance cars to see whether it deserved either the adoration or hostility it’s endured from thousands of online commenters. The car in question is the 2026 Honda Prelude – at least a near-production prototype – and the track was a portion of the dynamic handling circuit at Honda’s Tochigi Proving Ground in Japan. There will be a full press drive early next year, but for now, it was a chance to see whether the vitriol the new Prelude has faced has any substance to it, in the confines of Honda’s own test facility.
