Honda Goes Wild in America's Cloudland: Prelude Is a Sedan and Accord a Coupe!

Obviously, it might be easy to draw a few conclusions from the year-to-date sales of Honda America – CR-V Hybrid and Accord Hybrid make up more than half of the sale mix these days, and Acura's deliveries jumped even higher than the average – they were up 45% after the first eleven months of the year. Logic dictates one course of action – more hybrids and more premium models.

In the real world, the rumor mill fully expects Honda to debut the eleventh generation Civic's hybrid version for North America any day now. As a reminder, there's already a Civic e:HEV sedan and Hatchback in Japan and other places in Asia, as well as Europe – complete with a new 2.0-liter Atkinson gas engine, two electric motors, and a lithium-ion battery, and the model dearly needs the electrified version to brawl with the likes of Toyota's Corolla.

Additionally, Honda surprised everyone at the 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show when they featured the local premiere of their hybrid Prelude concept – a revival of the nameplate that had just been presented a few days before at home during the inaugural Japan Mobility Show, the event formerly known as the Tokyo Motor Show for almost seven decades. Hopefully, that means a series-production model is coming soon – not just in Japan but also in North America.

Speaking of the Honda Prelude Concept, the imaginative realm of digital car content creators also fell in love with it. Some pixel masters obviously dreamt it in Type R form, others just wanted to see it in production form – and nobody even thought about altering its body shape. Well, that was until we found out the good folks at the AutomagzTV channel on YouTube are thinking about disrupting the established Honda order of things in America with odd CGI ideas.

For example, they allowed their CGI expert to envision the upcoming Prelude Hybrid's production version as a traditional four-door sedan instead of a two-door sports car. The idea isn't bad per se – and it's also not badly executed virtually – but the Prelude sedan would undoubtedly clash with the upcoming Civic Hybrid. That is unless Honda could feature the Prelude between the Civic Hybrid and Accord Hybrid – perhaps with a plug-in hybrid setup. That's an excellent thought, right?

Secondly, since we also mentioned the Accord mid-size sedan, they also have a digital vision for it – and now the saloon has lost a couple of doors and went back to Accord Coupe duties. Well, that could work, too, especially if Honda wants to sell more premium stuff – a two-door mid-size flagship with a sensible price would be interesting, for sure. So, what do you think – do we give these quirky ideas the CGI thumbs up or not?