Honda Reveals Prelude GT500 Car for 2026

Honda has confirmed it will introduce a new GT500 base model for the 2026 SUPER GT season derived from the all-new Prelude sports coupe.

The Sakura marque took the covers off the Prelude-GT on Tuesday at Sportsland Sugo, where the new car is set to be shaken down for the first time on Wednesday.

It ends months of speculation surrounding Honda’s GT500 plans, and confirms that the current Civic Type R-GT will be retired at the end of the season.

Honda recently launched the revived Prelude road car in Japan, with the coupe set to go on sale in North America later in the year before a European launch in 2026.

Tuesday’s announcement signifies the end of the road for the radical four-door Civic Type R-GT, which has failed to match the all-conquering Toyota GR Supra since its introduction last year as the replacement for the long-serving NSX-GT.

The Civic’s first season was a qualified success as ARTA scored victory with Tomoki Nojiri and Nobuharu Matsushita at Fuji Speedway, with Team Kunimitsu pair Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino finishing runner-up in the standings.

However, Honda has yet to score a win this year, with ARTA scoring the marque’s best finish of second at Sepang, and the brand is in danger of suffering its first winless season since 2016 with only two races to go this year.

Honda is believed to be the only one of the three GT500 manufacturers introducing an entirely new base model for 2026, as Toyota and Nissan are set to stick with the GR Supra and the Z NISMO respectively.

However, both Toyota and Nissan will be able to take advantage of the end of the aero freeze — which will be reimposed from next March through 2029 — to implement updates to the areas of the bodywork that sit below the so-called ‘design line’.