DriveLife Car

Written by DriveLife online

2021 HONDA CIVIC TYPE R

Better than ever!

Back in 2017, Rob Clubley reviewed the Honda Civic Type R and wanted one. This is the riskiest aspect of reviewing cars; you spend a week with one and don’t want to give it back. It gets even more dangerous when you want to go out and buy one. So, the thennew Civic Type R had Rob struggling to restrain himself from visiting a Honda dealer. I drove the car after Rob and had the same feelings; performance, handling, braking all packaged up in a 5-door hatchback. It felt like there was little not to love - except for the looks.

2021 brings a few updates to the 10th gen car; tweaked suspension, some new body bits, enhanced engine noise, and a new performance app, among other things. You can read about the updates here. The engine is unchanged, still putting out 228kW of power in this front-wheel-drive hot hatchback.

With the i30N and now the i30N Fastback closely on its heels and of course Toyota’s all-wheel drive GR Yaris now knocking on its door, can the new Type R maintain its desirability, or will buyers start flocking to the new kids on the block?

THE RANGE

There’s just the one model here, it’s manual-gearbox only, and the 4-cylinder, petrol-turbo motor pumps out 228kW of power and 400Nm of torque. Standard price is $62,990, and for that you will get 20” alloy wheels, suede performance seats, hill start assist, a limited slip diff, rev matching system, 350mm Brembo front brakes, 305mm rear Brembo brakes, emergency brake assist, Lane Watch Camera, tyre deflation warning system, adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, lane keep assist, reversing camera with dynamic guidelines, keyless entry and start, alloy pedals, dual-zone climate AC, all windows auto up/down, a 7” centre touchscreen, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, electric folding mirrors, LED headlights, automatic headlights, LED DRLs, LED front fog lamps, and LED tail lights.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

think that was the case for a lot of people. When I drove it, all I could think was that I couldn’t see what the car looked like while behind the wheel, and that was okay.

I now love the look. After four years, it’s still so freaking outlandish it looks amazing. Oh, I still had people driving past me on the motorway, looking, pointing, laughing, but I didn’t care. In this new Boost Blue Pearl colour, to me it looks superb. All those lines, angles and bits of plastic trim jutting out that used to look like a mess, now turn me on. I wasn’t alone in having this view.

There haven’t been huge body changes for 2021; redesigned front and rear bumpers, body coloured accent blades, and that’s it. That means there’s still the big, red Brembo brakes, the triple exhaust tips and all sorts of aerodynamic tweaks.

THE INTERIOR

Red is the order of the day inside the Type R; a red and black Alcantara steering wheel grabs your eyes, then the red seats make you do a double take. Add to that the red seat belts, and red accents across the dash, and you get the hint. Red means fast, in Honda speak.

The red goes on, with contrasting red stitching on the doors, and red and white stitching on the seats. It’s not too much, and in perfect keeping with the car.

Of course, carbon fibre screams performance as well, so there’s a splash of that on the dash. There’s been a small change to the gear knob on the 2021 version; it’s not shaped the same as the beloved EK9 version of the Civic Type R, and even has 90 grams of weight inside it for a better shifting experience. Right below the gear lever is the Type R’s number plate – its unique serial number, riveted right there onto the console forever.

It was great to see that the infotainment and AC system has had a little upgrade; there’s now hard buttons to adjust the fan speed of the AC, and a separate Climate Control button to bring up other options on the centre screen – much better than the previous model. No actual changes to the infotainment centre have been made, which is a shame. It still looks low res and old school. Honda definitely needs to up its game in the infotainment screen department. Other than the LogoR app, the whole system is the same as a standard Civic and even the CR-V we recently tested. That’d be okay if it was good, but it’s lacking. The display also had 4 blank screens to scroll through, and I couldn’t find how to delete them, or if they could be deleted.

Rear legroom is excellent, although there’s no USB ports for your passengers, or any air vents. The rear seats are nothing special like the front, but still comfortable on a long trip. As a tribute to performance cars, there’s fake carbon fibre on the back of front seats. I’m not sure everyone wants that, but it’s there.

Boot space is extremely good - it is almost standard Honda Civic inside, after all. Under the rear floor there’s no space-saver spare, just a pump.

Keep in mind the Type R is a 4-seater only, apparently for weight distribution. I’m not sure what that means when there’s three in the car, but that’s what they say. There’s no actual divider like a hard console that other 4 seaters have, it’s just the normal seat but only two seatbelts.

THE DRIVE

After driving the i30N Fastback not long ago, and then the GR Yaris at Hampton Downs, I was very keen to see if the Type R would still kindle a fire enough to make me want it as much as I did before.

Time to press that red Start/Stop button and get this car moving. Just starting it, you’ll see it reverts to Sport mode straight away. While the Fiesta ST offers you launch mode at every time you stop, the Type R decides if you want to drive it, you obviously want it in Sport mode. That was fine with me.

The ride can be a little firm in Sport mode, and I did find myself switching it to Comfort mode quite a bit, but that’s probably more down to Wellington roads than anything else. On the times I got the car out into the quiet countryside, it was all very dependent on road conditions. There’s also +R mode, which is mainly for the track. This is pretty obvious since the ride gets really firm in +R mode, to the point where the whole car lifted and shifted in its lane on bumpy corners for me a few times.

While the ride definitely stiffens up in those two modes, so does the steering. It gets noticeably heavier, and the feel increases. Another highlight? The steering is almost perfect in this car. It’s direct, quick, and has excellent feel. You know exactly what

DRIVELIFE

those front wheels are doing, at any time. A shame then that the turning circle is so horrendous, at 12.6 metres. That’s huge, and you can really feel this when parking the car.

The clutch, while fine on the move, can feel a bit heavy in stop-start traffic, and the feel is a little lacking. The ‘new’ gear knob feels amazing, and you can actually feel that extra weight they’ve put inside it. It looks awesome too, and stands proud out of the console, waiting to be used in anger. It is made of titanium, and does have one drawback; after parking the car in hot sun for 6 hours, I could barely touch the gear knob, it was so hot.

It can be shifted quickly on a backroad, but you do need to be quite direct with the changes; no lazy swapping cogs here, the Type R wants to be treated properly. In saying that, I think overall it’s a better gear change than the i30N. The car still has rev matching, but if you want to old school it and heel and toe, the pedals are setup perfectly for this, making beautifully smooth changes down the ‘box.

Heavy acceleration from a start sees a repeat of the earlier model of Type R: masses of axle tramp and wheelspin, until electronics rein it in and you shoot forward. This is where the GR Yaris has it all over the Civic Type R. Does it matter? Yes and no. It’s frustrating to not be able to just floor it and dump the clutch without the axle tramp, but this does force you to drive the car better.

So, what about in the wet? It’s a bit of a handful, so you’ll need to be careful with that right foot, otherwise you aren’t going to move from a stop without wheelspin. The same goes for any sort of heavy acceleration on the move in most gears, in the rain; wheelspin is the order of the day. This isn’t a car for an inexperienced driver.

The car will rev very quickly to the 7,000rpm redline, without a hint of NVH. It’s not that quick, taking 5.8 seconds to get to 100km/h

but for this car, midrange is where it’s at. It’s stunningly quick to pass cars on the motorway, or to use that midrange on a backroad. Memories of 2017 come flooding back on the motorway, too; all that torque means that this hot hatch can cruise along comfortably in 6th gear, and still accelerate quickly and cleanly. Unbelievably, it’s a surprisingly good commuter, with excellent visibility and that tractable engine.

Gallons of torque also means you can short shift very easily. I found myself doing 1-2-4-6 often on any onramp, and there was little drama. It was awesome to have a manual test car for a change, as we only get one or two a year.

Adaptive cruise control sure helps the Type R with the Daily Drive. I’m happy to report that Honda hasn’t taken away the ability to change gear while adaptive cruise is on, and it stays on when you change up or down. I’ve never seen this on another manual car, and it’s excellent. On the downside, adaptive cruise won’t bring you to a stop, but this because of the manual gearbox. The other negative here is that adaptive cruise won’t brake going down a hill, unless there is a car in front of you. I don’t see any excuse for that, and we seem to be seeing it more and more, including the latest Toyota RAV4. It’s a safety and speeding ticket issue, and is almost inexcusable. I don’t recall the earlier model doing this but perhaps it did.

But using cruise control is not what the Type R is about. It’s made for the track, or nicely quiet backroads where you can travel comfortably under or at the speed limit. I didn’t get to take the Type R to the track – but oh, how I wanted to – but did get it on some backroads. As mentioned, +R mode is too aggressive for our backroads, and felt too nervous, but Sport mode was fine with me. The steering feel is still excellent, the ride acceptable, and performance enhanced over Comfort mode.

Let’s get it out there now; the Civic Type R should not handle this well for a frontwheel drive car. It obliterates corners, sitting flat and punching through them incredibly quickly. There’s almost no torque steer, even with 228kW going through the front wheels, and while you can use a higher gear will all that torque, using a lower gear and taking it to the redline is such fun, and the engine revels in it.

Turn in isn’t as good as the i30N, and definitely not as good as the Fiesta ST which almost fell into corners, but this just means that you need to manhandle the Type R a bit more and throw it into the corner, and it will love you for it. Trying hard, I could not get the tyres to squeal or lose traction. This is where it’d be great to test its limits out on a track.

As has happened with other hot hatches, I found myself comfort braking when the car could have gone faster. Handling, steering, brakes – it does it all. Those huge 4-piston Brembos front and rear are excellent too, great feel through the pedal and absolute power. Let’s be honest, the car’s not that heavy, it’s a manual and has huge brakes. They should be excellent, and they are.

Part of that flat cornering – and the hard ride – will be down to those Continental Sport Contact 6 tyres, pretty low profile at 30%. Low profile tyres can mean tyre noise, and the Type R is a victim on this. It can get quite weary after a while, and of course coarse chip seal really makes them sing. Still, it’s worth it for the handling capabilities this car possesses.

"THE STEERING IS ALMOST PERFECT IN THIS CAR. IT'S DIRECT, QUICK, AND HAS EXCELLENT FEEL."

New for 2021 for this car is the LogR app. After downloading the app to your phone and then hooking it into the car via USB, you get access to the LogR app in CarPlay or Android Auto via the central display. Regarding the app, Honda says:

The LogR app is designed to work exclusively with the new Type R, for both iPhone® and Android™ users. Honda LogR features three main functions: a Performance Monitor, a Log Mode, and Auto Score Mode.

The Performance Monitor provides vehicle information to the driver on the Display Audio screen while the app is functioning.

Log Mode records lap times on the track, allowing drivers to improve their driving skills.

The Auto Score function encourages smooth driving by monitoring braking, acceleration and steering, and generating a score based on the smoothness algorithm.

While driving, all interaction with Honda LogR is through the Advanced Display Audio screen, but Log Mode and Auto Score both offer more in-depth analysis after driving when the phone is unplugged from the vehicle, including previous drives, performance traces and replays using maps, and detailed vehicle information.

Essentially you hook up your phone and let it log your performance on any road, or especially any race track. You can view a G-Meter on the go, although it only shows the max Gs, and doesn’t say what direction that represents. It does give you scores on your drive, and I guess it’s a good addition to the car. I believe it would

DRIVELIFE

come into its own on a track, where you can go lap after lap, analyse your driving, then improve and check again. The app does need internet access but will log your drive anyway.

The gauges are straight from the Honda Civic, but that means they’re also straight from the CR-V and other Honda models. The dash has weirdly placed (and sized) engine temperature and fuel gauges, and also has that funky combined rev counter/speedo. The rev counter is not easy to read quickly – this car really needs a heads-up display – and seems out of place in such a performance car.

After driving the car for over a week and 800Km, fuel economy was much better than I thought it would be, at 8.3L/100Km, which is even better than Honda’s suggested 8.8. That doesn’t happen often, and for the performance of this car is extremely impressive.

If there was one part that was disappointing to me - and as far as driving the Type R goes, it is just the one thing – it’s the engine noise. There just isn’t enough. Even with the improvements to the engine to make it sound better, and even with the now-added fake engine noises through the audio system using Active Sound Control (ASC), it doesn’t snap, crackle, or pop. The i30N makes all sorts of childish noises even in Comfort mode. If you wind the Type R out past 5,000RPM, it does sound better, but it needs more than this. I notice Rob said the same thing in his review four years ago.

Enough of the negatives, the Type R is a blast to drive anywhere, anytime, and I want one so bad. I’m off to buy a Lotto ticket, or two.

THE VERDICT

The 2021 Honda Civic Type R is no worse than the previous model, and is better in some ways. The new design tweaks have made it more extroverted, and for that I love it. It looks stunning in the new Boost Blue Pearl colour, and I think that had a lot to do with my thoughts on the look of this hot hatch.

But that’s not to overshadow the best part of this car – driving it. My God, it handles so well for a front-drive car. That gearbox is awesome, as are the brakes and steering.

Is it better than the i30N and GR Yaris? We’ll have to reserve thoughts on the GR Yaris until we review it, but I feel there’s a huge gulf between the i30N and Type 2021 HONDA CIVIC TYPE R

ECONOMY 9

INTERIOR 9

PERFORMANCE 9

SAFETY 8

STYLING 9

VALUE

7

R. The i30N can fly under the radar, almost looking normal – until you hear that snap-crackle-pop exhaust, at least. But the Type R? It flies right through the middle of the radar, stomping on it on the way through for good measure. It’s unashamedly outlandish, but it has street cred to back up the looks. I’m not that sure a buyer would be looking at both. They might start with both on the list, but one or the other would drop off very quickly.

So, do I still have a love affair with the Civic Type R? Is it rekindled, or am I now looking at the younger, sexier options? I’m still in love, and in some ways more than ever. The looks I now adore, and the handling is still near-on perfect. The brakes are even better than before, and the new Boost Blue Pearl paint is a stunner. In saying that, there are things I didn’t see before due to the Type R red mist descending on me. I couldn’t remember the turning circle being so massive. I don’t recall that it had no decent engine noise, and the infotainment system hasn’t changed, and that’s a shame.

But it doesn’t matter. You don’t buy a hot hatch for the infotainment system and a huge turning circle doesn’t really come into it. You buy a hot hatch because it looks awesome and handles supremely well. The 2021 Honda Civic Type R nails both of these, and then some.