The changes to the exterior made in the 1990 facelift included the rear side of the Prelude. Most evident are the new shape taillights. My Prelude had the old taillights, which are red and orange of color. Because I really hate the color orange in taillights - it looks very outdated in my opinion - I spray painted them with a special black spray for taillights.

This is what the rear of the post facelift Prelude looks like. These taillights look more modern and luckily the orange color is gone. Also, they're less flat compared to the old taillights; the red part is beveled now. These are the lights I want in my Prelude, but it's not a case of just swapping them…

Because the new taillights won't fit the rear panel of an 88-89 Prelude, I bought the new type panel at the dealer. Drilling new holes and cutting the panel to accommodate the new lights is also possible, but is untidy.

Now the old rear panel has to be replaced by the new one. First there are about one hundred spot-welds to be drilled out. On the photo beside the panel is partially detached.

After a few hours of work the panel is out. The kit still has to be removed. Luckily, here too there wasn't a spot of rust between the bodywork. The new rear panel fitted in without any difficulties.

Here's the difference between the two panels. The lower part of the two panels is equally shaped, but the openings and mounting holes for the three taillight units are completely different.

This is what the rear looks like after the new rear panel has been installed. All seams have once again been covered by a thin layer of kit. Once the kit has hardened, I'll degrease everything first and then apply an equally thick layer of kit as stock.

The thin layer of kit has hardened enough after a week, time to put a good thick layer over it. For this application I again use flexible body kit, which when hardened, can be sanded and painted.

While on the junk yard, I ran into these new type taillights. There wasn't a scratch on them, they looked like new. Unfortunately they didn't have the left unit. Here in The Netherlands they're reasonably hard to come by, so I'll have to keep looking for a while! I've installed them temporarily to see how they look. It's quite an improvement and they fit perfectly.

Here are the obvious differences between the two taillight types. It's not just the color, it's also the shape. The total height of the units remained the same, but the upper part and lower part height ratio has changed. The lower part got much wider as well, making the inner reflector unit less wide.

The next modification necessary to fit everything is the trunk lid. Because the taillights got a different shape, the trunk lid was also redesigned. It's hard to see on the photo, but the bottom of the new type trunk lid (above) was extended some, and the cut-outs on the corners are different as well. There was a spoiler mounted on the trunk, but it will be replaced for a much larger one. Luckily the new trunk lid is easily swapped using the stock mounting holes.