Back again with more gopher car opinions that no one asked for. Am
I the leading car content creator on gopher? heh.
Today's subject is the new Honda Prelude and the fundamental struggle
of trying to sell nostalgia as a new product.
For a lot of things, but cars especially, the rosy tint of nostalgia
is an actual market moving force, for better or worse.
Like movie studios, car companies have been trying to tap into that
soft-reboot playbook in the hopes that people who loved the original
product will buy the new reboot. Or more realistically, people who
grew up hearing about how "good" the original product was, will
buy the brand new version of it.
And so it is that a brand like Honda will try to dredge up old
nameplates of nostalgically popular cars. Of course the core issue
with that is whether the consumers will think that new product is
an authentic homage to the original or just a cheap nostalgia cash
grab...
And sadly I think just like a lot of movie reboots, Honda's latest
nostalgia products have been seen as more like the latter than the
former.
And it is not Honda's fault completely. The nostalgic car buyer is
to blame for a lot of it. JDM cars from the 90s and 2000s are really
hot right now for millenials. Some of us are spending ridiculous
money to buy and chase "grail" cars. We spend all day watching
youtube videos about people buying and owning the cars we grew up
wishing we had. And we say things like, "wow if only they made a
new version of XXXX, I would totally buy it"
But that is a lie. that is a fantasy. That is pure nostalgia bait
that car brands fall for every single time. The Honda prelude is
a perfect example of that.
I won't go into the history of the prelude but for people that
weren't around back when the original version was out, the prelude
was a fantastically styled Honda coupe that had a lot of technology
that made it overpriced and it didn't sell all that well. But it
looked damn cool and because it was relatively rare to see one
driving around it gained automatic cool status and through the rosy
tint of nostalgia has gained some sort of "legendary" heritage.
Somehow, Honda was convinced that they needed to resurrect the
prelude and that in doing so there would be tons of people just
clamoring to buy a new re-imagined version of a pretty damn cool
looking car from the late 90s.
Why Honda was convinced of this, I have no idea. Nobody in America
buys coupes. Internet car guys SAY they want to buy cool JDM coupes
but they actually don't. Where's the evidence of this? Just look
at Civic coupe sales! Honda discontinued the Civic coupe a few
years ago because no-one bought it. And the Civic marque has been
in continuous production for decades. It has REAL legendary status.
So Honda has now brought back a car to fit that small and ever
shrinking market. And if they just brought back the civic coupe,
then I think they would have been OK. But nope, they had to cash
in on the JDM nostalgia and call their new 2-door coupe the
Prelude....And that is where the problem is.
Because what real actual car can replace a mythical "legendary"
car from the past? What can live up to the name of the prelude?
The Japan that originally produced the prelude is no more. The
world that originally bought the prelude is no more. A brand new
Prelude has to live in the 2025 world, with 2025 laws, and 2025
competition.
So what we get is a 2.0L hybrid 2-door prelude. The same hybrid
system that is in the Honda CR-V soccer mom SUV. The same hybrid
system in the Accord sedan.
How can a product like that ever live up to the mythical and
legendary prelude that lives in people's mind? Most of these buyers
have never owned a real prelude or even really seen one aside from
youtube videos or video games.
Naturally disappointment will follow. And the crazy part is that
Honda already experienced this with the Acura Integra they brought
back last year. The disappointment in the internet space was
incredible because how could a 4-door civic-in-tux Integra compete
with the memories of the older Integras like the DC2.
I'm not saying that Honda was wrong to bring back a 2-door small
coupe. I certainly welcome more choices into the market. But do we
need to resurrect these nameplates? Is this just the whining from
an old car guy?
Nostalgia marketing CAN work. I think the Ford Bronco is a great
example of that working. Everyone who looks at a new Ford Bronco
will say that is a worthy successor to the nameplate no matter how
bad the car actually is. The new Bronco LOOKS the part of a successful
sequel of an old nameplate.
Does the new Prelude look the part? I think it looks fantastic.
But it also has a hybrid drive train, no VTEC, no manual transmission,
no 4-wheel steering or really anything that made the original
Prelude unique. Time will tell I guess.
