1983 Gen 2 Honda Prelude Goes For a Drive

join me today at the wheel of a very rare beast indeed it's another 1980s coupe this time it's from japan yes it's a mark ii or generation two honda prelude now before we begin today's video i just want to take a moment to mention this incredible eagle must build the back to the future delorean kit series which comes not only with this wonderful binder but a complete series of in-depth magazines all about the history of the film the car the actors the trivia behind the scenes and you know i love all that kind of stuff but not as much as i am loving this kit this is an astonishing 1 8 scale which is absolutely vast the level of detail on this thing is just phenomenal you build a separate sub-assembly with every issue everything from the wheels the volvo prv v6 engine which lived in the back of the delorean now head to the link in the description below to get your first installment which includes issues one and two of the magazine plus two kits to get you started the first one rather excitingly includes your first bit of brushed stainless steel metal bodywork and you also get 50 of your second kit which includes four more magazines and four more sections of the kit when you subscribe now i'm just loving the insane level of detail you get here working suspension and steering incredible moulding detail on things like the gearbox which are going to be hidden well inside there it's complex but huge fun and not difficult even comes with a magnetic screwdriver you need and plenty of spare screws so if you drop a couple it doesn't matter too much right now i'm going to leave you to get on with the video will i carry on building some more of this i think i'm on to assembling some bodywork this is a 1983 generation 2 honda prelude ex manual isn't it a beautiful thing back in the late 1970s coupes were as your grandmother would say all the rage everyone had one in their range and honda certainly wanted a slice of that action so they brought out the generation one prelude generation one is generally a good place to start with a new series of cars and that ran from 1978 until 1982 and this the second generation came out in 1982 and ran to 1987 with a facelift in 1985. now something very interesting which makes the the prelude pretty much unique in this this sector is that this is not based on anything else they've not taken a family car or a saloon or a hatchback and developed a coupe out of it sedan coupe i guess you would call this one the first generation prelude was an all-new platform everything completely ground up design and then just four years later the generation two came out and that was a completely new ground up design as well it didn't use the old floor pan it was different bigger new so yeah that's that's quite an impressive thing now while we're talking about design let's mention the front end because there's a few interesting things going on here first of all pop-up headlights yeah pop-up headlights for the win the generation two was the first prelude to get pop-up headlights it aided aerodynamics when the lights were off but obviously it hindered it when you're driving in the dark and also in terms of aerodynamics this was a big step on from the generation one it was very very smooth shaped very wedgy very sharp and you notice how low this bonnet line is this is a typical honda thing of a low bonnet line and a big greenhouse glass area so a great big windscreen big side windows has a low bonnet line low scuttle so excellent visibility there are other various little honda things you notice as you look around the car for example the antenna for the aerial sitting above the a-post on the driver's side the door handles and locks which are very similar to a lot of other hondas and dare i say rovers we've seen in the past and looking around on the flanks of the car check out these wheels these beautiful alloys you get diamond cut stuff today you don't very often get gold letters picked out on the wheels this is absolutely beautiful wow what a thing and i know for a fact there are wiper nerds out there watching this video right now let's count the wipers on this car one two one two one wifer on the front one wife on the back a wiper on the back of a sedan coupe saloon shaped car that's pretty cool huh but this is also very exciting i won't wipe it now because the car is dry but it's pretty grim out today so uh i think we'll be having opportunities to uh to use that wiper now i will just quickly say i wouldn't normally take a car like this 30 000 miles from you and immaculate out on a day as grim as this if i could help it this car is for sale at stone cold classics where i am today you can check the website in the description below and find more details about it but it went for an mot this morning cause it's already been out in the rain once today so i'm kind of thinking it's okay to do it a second time it passed without a single advisory i'm sure you'd be pleased to know but yeah check out the link in the description below to find if you want to buy this car if i haven't already because it's really nice right let's have a look under the bonnet now you will notice i'm opening this bonnet in the wrong direction oops where's the strut i thought it might hang on its own but it doesn't you need to put a strut in it this is a front opening bonnet which actually surprised me i'd never noticed that about prelude before now there were four engine choices on this car not that you necessarily got to choose because it depended partly where you were in the world there was a pair of 1.8 and a pair of two litres throughout the range both of the 1.8 were 1829 cc and 12 valve one was the e 18a and the other was the es cv cc which is a honda technology then we get on to the two litre versions there are two different sizes though one was the 1955 cc a20 12 valve engine and then we got the big daddy of them all the b20 which is 1958 cc so three cc's more and double overhead camshaft and you can discern that on from the outside of the car because that one was a slightly larger head on the engine and so they changed the bonnet a little bit for that one interestingly on the b20 that was a japanese only for the b20 itself which made 160 horsepower in europe and america that was the b-20a it only made 137 horsepower this car though is a 1.8 cv as you can see just there dual carburetor now climbing into the prelude you do realize that if european and certainly american manufacturers weren't worried about the coming japanese cars they really should have been because they were taking it to them and beating them in terms of either quality price or both even after nearly 40 years at 37 38 years this car still feels exactly as it would have done when it was brand new and the level of equipment in here is more than impressive so first of all i'm sinking into these nice buckety seats which are i think we've gone back to some more toilet here this is the uh interesting half mix of tweed tweed meets velour with corduroy outer sides in fact that's velour meets corduroy valorderoy i don't know the center section with this nice herringbone pattern is definitely velour but it's got like a certain tweedy toughness and the outer section is uh grooved like corduroy but feels again like velour so it's a tweed and velouda roy seats i think we're gonna call these i'm gonna lift the camera off the tripod and walk you through this rather nice interior which is loaded with stuff this might take a while okay let's start in the door for simple reason if we start there we won't miss anything well in the top corner you'll notice we have got internal uh manual mirror adjusters which is always a good thing on the driver's door always a good thing even better unlike many of its rivals on the passenger door as well one up tick one for honda just there they're moving into the door card we've got our elephant hide plastic but molded to look like leather and then molded in stitching there's lots of attention to detail to make it look like more than it is if that makes sense the lower part of the door is also pretend textured plastic leather a solid metal door pull which is quite easy to grab your finger into and these big chunky locks that japanese cars often had back in this time down here in this glossy panel which is actually fully gloss on the passenger side what we might call piano black today but just shiny plastic in this car of age we've got um main on and off the switch is for the windows regular up and down for the passenger window and auto window for the driver's side also a blanked off switch or is that a clip of some kind just randomly here at the front and not only do we have a ventilation vent down here which can be adjusted for direction up and down left and right so instead of placing it up here on the dashboard it's out here in the doors it's quite a good idea it's actually a little bit closer to the driver so you get a bit more ventilation off that in order to keep the window clear we've got a vent blowing up onto the glass but not one vent not two vents but three vents down the entire length of the driver's window so you have no excuse for mr windows because we have the same or simple events down along the top of the dash top as well so we are fully ventilated and then down in the center of the dashboard we've got more of the same so you are no excuses for driving along in a steamed up car whatsoever now while we're talking about the dash top we again have the plastic molded lip fake leather with the fake stitching molded into it this is really nice and the digital clock which also has the date on it as well date function quartz obviously and as we know honda and rover were tied together in the early 80s and they do a lot of parts and design sharing and something where i'm noticing just here is this you may be familiar with this area from rover r8 st3s and so on this is the t-shelf we have got an exemplary t-shirt off here in the honda excellent space for all your picnicking needs of course being a japanese car it should be a green tea shelf i'll move back over here and talk about other things if we glance in with the door open these are the vent tubes of the vent access which blows into the door this is quite an extreme amount of ventilation blowing into this door card also notice in the back of this area here not only is the uh shiny bit of metal for the extra lock someone's added to the car these little switches which are the same as on a rover coupe now looking at the uh instrument binacle we've got a nice angular again blade runner building-ish surround now there is one other warning light area which we don't actually know what it's for it's a vertical strip of leds running top to bottom the top one being a different color to the three below so i'm guessing that's a red one probably if anyone knows what that's for we'd be fascinated to find that one out over here on the right hand side we've got three buttons the top one is an opener closer for the headlights so you can perform maintenance presumably on them or just have them up for whatever reason you like and below that roof closed open that can only mean one thing we have got an electric sunroof oh very cool back down here next to the uh random switches we've got an electric switch for the aerial above my head on the right hand side and the lighter 12 volt socket and then we have a very very chunky indeed wiper selection here on the left hand side uh obviously the usual stuff intermittent low and high and washers for the front and of course we've got the one for the rear as well complete with wiper on the back that's an unusual stalk on a coupe which isn't a hatchback over on the right hand side because japanese early 80s our indicators are here on the right hand side along with our light switches to activate our i love that [Applause] headlight on warning our pop-up headlights then we have an instrument dimming uh dial and our fog light switch underneath that we've got our fuses and the coin tray because 80s cars always have a coin tray and the interesting little instructions on how to use the stalk on the right hand side so for high low pass left right and of course because this is a japanese car of the 80s you have to push the keys to remove them now also down here on the right hand side of the driver familiar to anyone who's driven a honda or rover from the 80s or 90s is this boot and fuel door release down here by the driver oh that leads us back actually also to a pretty sizable door pocket now moving back we have got a not too big steering wheel it's like a hard rubbery plastic material which does point out in its very center that it is power steering equipped and maybe too close to focus power steering equipped only it looks like it's two prong wheel but actually it's a three prong with this very uh blake seven uh battle style galactica influenced i would say this particular steering wheel very modernistic for the early eighties we do love a bit of early eighties style though because it's always just a bit exciting over into the center below the extensive t-shelf area we've got the twin air vents we mentioned and look at this extreme control for all of heating and ventilation you know where you are without it tells you exactly what you're going to be doing with stuff and below that we have well if it's not the original radio it's certainly in period edition uh it's a national auto repeat radio cassette player medium wave and the fm yes it's an fm scale there mono option as well of course if you're listening in medium wave mainly mono so you can flick it into all the speakers at once below which we have got a little ash tray and to the left of that we've got a flock lined glove box not very big but effect is not very big now moving back into the center interestingly there's no center console or cubby here underneath the main hanging area of the middle of the dashboard which when you look at it compared to the transmission tunnel it's actually offset to the left don't really notice it until you stop and look at it you think well hang on that's in the middle of the car actually no it isn't a big gap here then into this transmission tunnel section which houses a five-speed manual gearbox which will be good because it's a honda you know that's gonna be smooth riding easy to use moving back into manual handbrake and of course we've got the back seat area because this is a coupe there's not a lot of room in the back but what you can but what we do have though is this little switch just here if you read that there trunk through turn that switch it means we can put the weak the back seat down and so we can turn it into a useful practical car there are only two lap belts here in the back of the car so it's only a four seater but there are little arm rests with ash trays on the left-hand side armrest and no escrow on the right side not a great deal of knee room so i'm not going to try and climb in there but headroom looks quite respectable now here around the back of the car you can really see the angular square styling of this thing which is very much odds of its european and american rivals which were getting very swoopy and curvy even if they were more angular and wedgie things like the capri and the manta for example were very much more soft edged than this thing which is very much three box coupe look apparently we've got different tail lights here in in europe than we did to japan but this is interesting how this full width reflector and light bar is now becoming a common thing again audi porsche kira off top of my head i'm going with this style again now with slim led strips whereas this is uh obviously a bit bigger and chunkier being the 80s style where chunky squares were very much the graph paper look around here at the back we do also course have the obligatory heavy rubber spoiler which obviously aided massively with downforce was vitally important we wouldn't have it any other way chunky bumpers little small twin exhaust and well something i really haven't a real original detail we've got the original hammonds and oakwood of farnborough in kent number plate and the back window another new honda supplied by hammers no called garages limit western road kent and you know this car is a one family owner from new car it's been the same husband and wife since it was new all those years ago and they were clearly keen to keep it because if you look at the side of the doors it has got additional dead bolts screwed in at the bottom of the doors and it was protected by a radio shack alarm now fairly typical of cars of this area certainly honda's getting away into the boat with the key or the pulley tag down by the driver's seat once you're in here the boot goes back quite a long way but it's quite a shallow boot so you're gonna have to really push things down hard not easy if they're struggling it's got side trim left and right the jack is under this plastic trim on the side the spare tire is underneath the carpet just here however there's no trim here on the back edge of the boot which is curious you've got plastic covers over the tail lights so you can access them unscrewing these little knurled nuts which is far easier of changing bulbs than anything else but yeah no actual overall trim in the center which i find curious of course you can also make the boot bigger by turning that little dial just there and flipping the seats down single wiper now the prelude mark ii generation two went on sale on november 25th 1982 in japan and they found a new way of selling it in japan they started a new chain of stores called the verna stores the logo was like a red flower to represent trust and the customer all that kind of thing it was where they were going to sell their premium cars and initially it was based around the generation one prelude and later on other more exciting vehicles that they came up with now it's interesting to note that most of this cars rivals were actually rear-wheel drive so things from everyone from mercedes to ford to toyota were doing rear-wheel drive coupes so throwing a front-wheel drive car into the mix was a bit of a difference it turned it into more of a grand tourer i guess rather than out in our sports car gran turismo if you're going to be all playstationary about it yeah i didn't think you're indicating where you were going [Music] there wasn't just a driving wheel that separated it it was the way the thing feels what felt and feels today unlike the lower end of the market the fords the voxels those kind of things it's got a really refined um feel to it it feels very composed on the road there's no rattling no noise no very little wind noise the whole thing feels incredibly well screwed together and the road manners and the appliance of the suspension are really really nice it's just you really feel like you're in at the wheel of a really controlled refined vehicle then you get to the higher end stuff the bmw and the mercedes coupes so things like the e21 later the e30 and the various mercedes coupes which had that heavy germanic feel to them and this has a build quality to match those no question but combined with lightness so you really are getting the absolute best of all worlds and unlike the mercedes where you have to spec the glass in the windows as an option in this car look at it it's loaded anything really i can think of we don't have would be electric seats and air conditioning we've got electric sunroof we've got electric windows yeah we're pretty much laughing in terms of accessories we would expect at this time on a car [Music] and this particular tactic must have been working because around the mid 80s most sports car coupe type things were being dropped by manufacturers the manta went the capri went by 1990 there was really almost nothing else on the market that you would count as a sports coupe as you would have considered it 10 years previously maybe just the seleka or the supra were still fighting the fight but this car the prelude it didn't get dropped in 1987 when this uh generation finished it kept going for another three generations still five generations of prelude in the end which is uh a good number i would say and in fact the series 2 significantly outsold the series one so perhaps that comfortable grand tourer with a hint of sportiness was what the public was really wanting this particular car is owned by a husband and wife from new they owned it they bought it brand new in 1993 and they've only just sold it now so clearly it was doing something right for them all those years the controls are immensely light the pedals feel like nothing under your feet power steering is very very assisted but there's no hint of wobbliness no no wandering and although it is perhaps a little lighter than i would like you just do give it a little tweak of your finger and the wheels follow exactly there's no play in it breaking wise this car is discs all round vented at the front not at the back just sort of the back let's just give them a quick stab yeah they're pretty powerful i wasn't fully looking up because it is damp day-to-day abs was an option on these cars and honda being honda was a very logical direct way of looking at things their acronym for anti-lock brakes is alb which makes sense why does no one else's acronym for abs mean anti-lock brakes anti-skid braking system who wrote that [Music] this really does feel very honda-like it's uh just so practical so sensible everything is laid out where you want it to be the blowers don't blow in your eyes like some cars do the gear shift is just fantastic and interestingly the hand grab for the passenger is up on the a post which is actually quite a nice place to be it's sitting like that with your hand above your head isn't very comfortable but out in the front that's not so bad now although this is a carburetted car rather than fuel injection it is an auto choke so no messing around looking for the choke on the dashboard and it does fire up really instantly just like a fuel-injected car would do i've yet to see these four leds on the dashboard light up at any time so i don't know what they're for i'm still mystified by that unfortunately everything else in the dashboard is really clear and legible the speedometer is huge and in front of your rev counter likewise i really like these under the dashboard warning lights that give it a bit more of like i said earlier battlestar galactica feel this steering wheel is so 1980s sci-fi-ish it's fantastic and combine those with these interesting looking control stalks which are just small as they go into the the console but massive oil drums at the end obviously we are running with the headlights on today because it's pretty gloomy out [Music] oh this car is so nice it's so easy and intuitive to drive a lot of these were sold as automatics it was a choice of a four-speed auto or a five-speed manual across the range and because they were generally bought by maybe slightly older buyer or mature perhaps it appealed to that kind of grown-up person rather than the capri mother appealed to the younger guy a lot worse sold as autos now i'm not saying that automatics are purely for old people who don't like driving i am thinking it uh yeah it's nice to find one with a manually it obviously being a coupe the head room is a little less generous than on the saloon models from honda so you are a little bit closer to the top of your head with the ceiling although because this has got the electric sunroof that's a little bit closer still it doesn't feel claustrophobic though because the glass area is just massive as i mentioned at the beginning the scuttle is very low so you've got a great view over the dashboard down to the front of the car and even it's got a big chunky impact bumpers which i guess was america mandated uh you can still see clearly where the front of the vehicle is especially when the headlights are up and you can see the top of the lamps in your eye line this mirror does look quite small and a bit 1970s ish in the way it's on this little stalk just here and just so small really big glass small rim that's got a 70s feel around it great if you have the back of the car fairly decent sized rear glass and obviously that rear wiper a real wire but how cool is that when there was the first came on the market it was initially just 105 horsepower 1.8 later the 2-liter came on stream and when they first came to the uk the initial choices were just the base model with pretty much nothing all the top end this is the es this is the uh the loaded example [Music] and it does really handle so nicely independent suspension around coil springs obviously none of your leaf sprung muck it just feels like it wants to go around the corner we'll chuck around this roundabout a little quicker it may well be a gt more than a sports car but it does feel like you can push it on quite happily it feels so planted and so controlled it's brilliant even as it bottoms out on a bump it's just in control all the time well thank you for joining me today the word of this really really mint honda this has been absolutely fantastic i've driven under other preludes of other generations i've never driven a gen 2 before so this was quite interesting it's amazing how well it stands up to the test of time it really is a great car if you've enjoyed this please as always hit like and subscribe if you can get to 50 000 subscribers by easter i will be over the moon join me again next week we'll be driving something completely different and that roundabout really upset the capri and the manta no such problems in the honda

Channel: furiousdriving

Views: 28,804

Keywords: car, cars, blog, vlog, retro, classic, classic car, retro car, motoring, honda, prelude, honda prelude, mk2, gen 2, generation 2, mk2 prelude, japanese car, 1983, 80s car, 1980s car, 1980s, eighties, coupe, 2 door

Id: of3zg8ryuYo

Length: 27min 10sec (1630 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021