- Despite a humdrum hybrid powertrain, the 2026 Honda Prelude handles like a dream, and it offers two types of tires.
- A set of Goodyear Eagle Touring all-season tires is standard, but Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02 summer tires are a $1200 dealer-installed option.
- We’ve now tested one Prelude on all-season tires and another with summer rubber, and the results show the latter set helped it corner harder and stop shorter.
Welcome to Car and Driver’s Testing Hub, where we zoom in on the test numbers. We’ve been pushing vehicles to their limits since 1956 to provide objective data to bolster our subjective impressions (you can see how we test here).
Like most enthusiasts, we were a bit disappointed by the 2026 Honda Prelude’s firepower—or lack thereof. Now that we’ve tested a Prelude on its standard all-season tires, rather than just the set of sticky summer rubber on the first car we tested, we have the full picture of the little coupe’s performance. Unfortunately, switching from the all-season tires to dedicated summer performance tires doesn’t do as much as we initially hoped—but, fortunately, the grippier rubber does improve the sporty coupe where it counts.
We should start by saying that the Prelude’s optional stickier tires didn’t do squat for acceleration. Reaching 60 mph took an identical 6.5 seconds in both cars. With the Atkinson-cycle 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine and hybrid components working together to supply just 200 horsepower, the Prelude is never wanting for straight-line traction. Still, we wanted to see what differences appeared with a set of Goodyear Eagle Touring all-season tires in place of our initial test car’s Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02 tires (available as a $1200 dealer-installed option). Here’s how the test figures stack up.
As expected, grip levels improved by a considerable margin. The 19-inch Goodyear all-seasons and Continental ExtremeContact summer tires are identically sized at 235/40R-19 (ZR-19 for the higher-speed-rated Contis). The all-seasons gave in to lateral g-forces around the skidpad at 0.90 g, serving up moderate understeer in the process. The Continentals held on until 0.97 g, and kept understeer much more in check.
