Originally posted by rodsfree
The primary reason that the Prelude was discontinued was sales. Honda had to decide if it should produce a car that only sold 20-50 thousand units. And Honda was comparing those figures against the Civic and Accord which both averaged over 300 thousand units.
Honda had always used the Prelude to test and develop new technology for the other other models. So it has a mix of sports and luxury attributes. The first car that V-TEC was offered on was the Prelude. The first Honda that had power windows and a power sun/moon roof was a Prelude.
Also if it wasn't for the success of the technology developed for the Prelude then Acura would not exist. Because the Acura marque is just the expensive Honda, just like Lexus is for Toyota. And the Preludes sales were hurt by that preception. "Why buy a $25,000.00 Honda Prelude when you could get an Acura for just a little more?" That's an actual quote that a salesman used on me when I was looking at Preludes.
So what it boils down to is that the bean counters won a battle that the orginal Mr. Honda wouldn't have let them win. He developed the first Prelude to be his test bed for new technology for performance, racing (check what the Honda factory teams used to race), or comfort.
It's always a sad day when something that represents the spirit of innovation is destroyed by pure cold-hearted greed. But it happens.
Our loss
Sorry for the sermon.....I just feel strongly about some things....like my car!
I agree with everything, and I wouldn't reply to you except for one minute little detail: please, please, please..... it's VTEC. No dashes. I know I'm nit-picking, but I think that annoys Honda people more than anything else.
Oh, yeah.... technically speaking the NSX had VTEC before the Prelude did. Again, minute, but important. The gist of your post did bring out good points. I love my Prelude, anyway.