1988 Honda Prelude Si

Honda's Prelude began life in the late Seventies as a sporty coupe using mechanicals that were largely borrowed from the Accord.

This 1988 Honda Prelude Si in Granada Black represents the third generation of the Prelude, a foot longer and four hundred-ish pounds heavier than the diminutive original.

Performance was well along the comeback trail by the late Eighties. The '88 Prelude Si featured a 2.0L DOHC fuel-injected four cylinder putting out 135bhp, which isn't a lot by today's standards, but compare that to the dark days of 1980, when 135 was what you could expect from a smog motor carbureted V8 in a Camaro. A 1980 Prelude only had 75 horsepower.

The "4WS" badge on the B-pillar proclaims that this Prelude had Honda's new four wheel steering system. This was an active steering system that employed a rear steering box that steered the rear wheels based on the amount of angle input at the steering wheel. Effectively this meant at low speeds, in parking lots where the driver was really cranking on the wheel, the rear wheels turned the opposite direction as the front, decreasing the turning radius. At high speeds, where inputs were less dramatic, the rears steered the same direction as the fronts, sharpening response in lane changes and high-speed sweepers.

Car and Driver clocked a 0-60 sprint of 8.6 seconds from their 2.0Si test car, which also ran a 16.5 second quarter at 83 mph through the traps. It managed 0.77g on the skidpad with the stock tires.

I do miss the low hoods, chiseled noses, and pop-up headlights of this era, but they were not at all pedestrian-friendly.

This one even has a proper 1988 year-of-manufacture license plate!

These pics were snapped in August of 2023 using a Nikon 1 V1 and a 1 Nikkor 18.5mm f/1.8 lens.