BMW M4 vs Honda Prelude

What's the difference?

To say the BMW M4 CS is a hot ticket in Australia is something of an understatement.

Consider this. There is an even more expensive one, the M4 CS Edition VR46 – at a cool $346,900 – and it sold out in less than an hour. Now, granted, Australia only got four examples, but still, demand was running hot.

That car makes this one, the regular M4 CS, seem like an absolute steal. It's only $254,900 (yes, the word 'only' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence), and it shares the same upgrades, and makes the same monstrous power, as the VR46 – for Valentino Rossi’s 46th birthday – only it does it for around $100K less.

See? A bargain. At least, that's how I'd be justifying it to myself if I had a quarter of a million burning a hole in my pocket.

So, this or a Porsche 911? Read on.

Honda is a company that rarely looks back.

Badge aside, the resurrected Prelude series is more about being revolutionary than retro, with not even any classic-era styling cues (though a few likely Porsche ones).

In fact, Honda made it clear this was created as a hybrid sports car first, with the name settled on later. Probably by marketing.

It could just as easily have been branded Integra, which – given the shared Civic platform and liftback when previous Preludes had two doors only – might have been the case, except that name is already on an Acura and Chinese GAC version of Honda’s venerable small car.

That said, its new sports car is arguably more Prelude in spirit than even some of the past originals were anyway, and then some, and here’s why.