And believe me, I had HELLA fun.
Plus it had a FUTURE Star Trek dash!
Moreso, the Prelude name itself inherited a weirdly shady reputation it could never shake off.
For that, we'd have to go back to the 1980s during Japan's "Bubble Economy". Japanese companies were flush with capital, and car companies in Japan were especially riding high as they danced all over America's own godawful "Malaise Era" cars.
But in a 2nd gen Prelude?
NO! Let's instead give the driver full access to the passenger's recliner!😏😱
Japanese people weren't fooled though; they nicknamed it 「スケべレバー」, aka the "Pervert Lever".
Regardless, shady reputations will eventually mar an image, as 3rd gen sales wouldn't be as great.
So how were US sales?
Definitely not 2nd/3rd gen levels, but still decent enough.
But how about in Japan?
DISASTROUS.
But since it's a USDM 4th gen, we had no pervert levers. The car was more of a chasity belt.🙄
So shoutouts to awesome 4th gen fans like @valsound keeping them around & relevant in Japan.
valsound.fc2web.com/car/index.html
He's a LONG-TIME 4th gen fan in Japan who takes lots of nice photos of local meetups. I knew of his site for a long time too — whoud've known we'd meet through common ground: Chiptunes & Preludes.
In US, maybe. It certainly was the funnest daily, and I wouldn't mind it being my weekday car again while an '06 Pontiac GTO becomes my hooner indulgence.
In Japan? Uhh… well I don't care about reputation. But I DO care about luxury taxes!