COVER Honda Civic Type R

MATURE

Exterior and interior design have come of age, yet hot Honda’s road and track manners are as fun as ever

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FK2 This was where the Type R turned to turbocharging in the pursuit of power. It also returned to a raw driving experience that was rewarding, but too much for some. FK8 This car refined the issue with its predecessor, offering a smoother ride but even more engagement and balance. The styling still wasn’t too all tastes, but you couldn’t argue with the performance.

● First test of Honda’s mega hot hatch ● It’s pricey, but well worth the £47k cost

Steve Sutcliffe

mail@autoexpress.co.uk

DESPITE the rabid anticipation surrounding the new

Honda Civic Type R, and the eye-watering £46,995 price tag Honda has attached to it, the car itself contains surprisingly few all-new components when compared with the model it replaces. Yes, it has a new bodyshell that’s 15 per cent stiffer than before (which is a great starting point), but its engine and gearbox are essentially the same as in the car it replaces, as are its steering, brakes and suspension.

And yet the overall result is a hot hatchback that once again rewrites the rulebook when it comes to front-wheeldrive dynamics. It is, quite simply, the best hot hatchback there has ever been. In places, by quite some margin.

How? Well, what Honda has done with the Type R this time is clever – and quite unusual. Rather than spending their time and money developing a range of brand-new components, Honda’s engineers have instead evolved what they already knew worked rather well on the existing Type R, fine-tuning them to a level that would never have been possible had they started from scratch.

On the one hand, you could argue that the budget wouldn’t have allowed them to develop an all-new

2017

powertrain in the first place, so they had no option but to work on what they already had. On the other hand, few manufacturers would have the confidence to allow their engineers to spend four years essentially honing a car that was already in a class of one. But that’s precisely what Honda has done in this instance.

The resulting car’s familiar-but-tweaked 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine generates 325bhp and 420Nm and means the Type R sprints from 0-62mph in 5.4 seconds – four tenths of a second faster than its predecessor. And it could very well be the last Civic Type R ever to use a pure-combustion engine. The tweaks to that motor and the car’s aerodynamics have resulted in a top speed that has risen from 169mph to 171mph, while the car also weighs 24kg more than before, purely because the new bodyshell is that much bigger and heavier than the old one. The new styling is less aggressive, more premium even, but is functional too, helping add extra high-speed grip.

The six-speed manual gearbox has also been improved (but not replaced) to make it even snappier than before and with auto blipping now available on all downshifts. The steering, brakes and suspension have been similarly evolved to a level where, according to Honda, there is simply no more room for improvement.

In effect, what we are talking about here is a blueprinted version of an already brilliant car, but with softer (some might say more acceptable) styling and a broader range of settings within the same adjustable drive programme. In practice, this allows you to drive the new Type R with more soothing damper settings and slightly lighter, less aggressive steering on the road but an even more focused dynamic personality when you want the opposite – namely, on a track.

At the launch event in Portugal, we drove the car on both. Around the track at Estoril the Type R was even more

DRIVETRAIN Using its 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine as a base, Honda has coaxed 325bhp from the motor. It could be the last pure-petrol Civic Type R; lovely six-speed manual gearbox has also been retained and offers a superb shift

WHEELS New 19-inch wheels are wrapped in bespoke Michelin rubber, which along with the Civic Type R’s impressive chassis, help generate a huge level of grip

sensational than we were expecting. There were notable improvements to its steering bite and feel compared with the old hot Honda, stronger brakes, a fair bit more acceleration from 3,000rpm onwards and a quite delicious new sense of balance to its chassis, both on turn-in and when the car is loaded mid-corner.

It also has a phenomenal amount of grip and traction for a front-wheel-drive car. Its bespoke new Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres (now 265/30 19s all round) allow it to carry speeds into and through corners that, we suspect, would simply not be possible in any rival. Not even fourwheel-drive ones such as the Volkswagen Golf R or Mercedes-AMG A 35.

Genuinely, the Type R is that quick around a track, hence the reason Honda will be keen as mustard to grab its front-wheeldrive Nürburgring lap record back from the Renaultsport Mégane RS Trophy R “sometime next year” , according to bosses.

Of arguably more relevance is the discovery that the new Civic Type R is, if anything, even more of a revelation to drive on the road. Here it’s more refined and more relaxed steering and damper settings when in Comfort mode make a big difference to its overall usability – to a point where you could easily live with this car 365 days a year, which was always a point of contention with the old model.

The same goes for the interior. The driving position is fundamentally as close to perfect as you can get in a front-drive car – always was. But this time there’s a new sense of quality and a depth of sophistication to the instruments and central touchscreen infotainment system that lends the car a more expensive aura.

It’s still overtly sporting in look, what with its red bucket seats and suede-rimmed steering wheel, but it no longer feels like a quasi competition car inside. Rear-seat space is also significantly better than of old. Thus, as with most other aspects, Honda has judged the balance between sporting intent and real-world comfort pretty much to perfection this time round.

Issues? Apart from its stiff pricing and the fact this means it now competes with premium hot hatchbacks in the showroom (in theory), there aren’t many that we can think of. Which means it justifies its price entirely, because in reality, it simply doesn’t have any other serious hot hatch rivals. Not at any money.

“The driving position is fundamentally as close to perfect as you can get in a front-drive car”

STYLING Design trademarks such as the Civic Type R’s triple-exit exhaust have been retained, only the look is more sophisticated compared with the previous-generation car