The comeback kid
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You have to admire Honda. The old Civic was, to say the least, conservatively styled, and for this reason it attracted a certain type of driver who would invariably leave one indicator on all the time and probably something on the roof as well.
It came as a surprise then, to find that when Honda garnished the Civic with a frankly insane engine and some big wheels to create the Type R, the model accounted for 15 per cent of total sales of the model in the UK. It was, to be honest, quite a special car.
But time marches on, and now there’s a new Civic and, with it, finally, a new Type R.
Double take
The Civic has been around for a while now, but I’ll bet you still do a double take when one drives past; the Type R is not a discreet mode of transport. Order it in red (let’s face it, you might as well), and it blends into its surroundings in the same way The Who would blend into the Proms. So, not very well then.
Designed by people who should probably be in anger management, with a more or less unlimited supply of mind-bending drugs, it’s a purposeful, mean and edgy looking car. An excellent start, then, because the old one wasn’t.
In Type R guise, it rides 15mm lower, gains a deep chin spoiler, 18-inch alloys, flared wheel arches and low side skirts. Triangles are also very much the theme here - triangular fog lights, triangular door-handle scoops, triangular indicator repeaters and not for Honda humdrum circular exhausts. They’re triangular too.
It works though, and the overall result is that of a car not to be messed with. The badging is fairly reserved, with the honeycombe front grille sporting the red Honda ‘H’ and a chrome ‘Type R’ on the tailgate, but you don’t need to look at the badges to realise this machine means business. A big tick for appropriately aggressive exterior styling then
The Type R blends into its surroundings in the same way The Who would blend into the Proms
It’s a similar story inside, too. You fall into massively supportive alcantara-trimmed bucket seats, and look through the leather steering wheel to a dash that’s part analogue and part digital.
An analogue rev counter encircles a digital readout of the computer’s findings on your driving style – average speed, mpg etc - and above that, a digital readout of your speed gives you the chance to explain to the Police exactly the increments by which you were exceeding the speed limit.
The interior is trimmed in the customary Type R red and black, which is more tasteful than it sounds, and if you’re looking at buying one, it’s worth spending the extra £1,000 for the GT spec. This gives you air con, full-length curtain airbags, cruise control, automatic headlights, front fogs and keyless ignition, and it’ll be worth more at re-sale time. Satellite navigation is a further option, but I’d save the money and get a good map.
Being a hatchback, it’s also reasonably practical. The boot is split into two levels and more than capable of swallowing a fair bit of shopping, and there are also some rear seats, if you can get to them without breaking your wrist on the handles.
Use the Force
The cabin is fairly light and airy, despite the low roofline, but a combination of the large rear spoiler and split-level tailgate glass, means rearward visibility is a bit limited. To be fair, you probably won’t need to look out the back very much, but you will need to use the Force while parking.
Each Type R has a unique serial number mounted just above the gearshift, (to ‘celebrate its exclusivity’, apparently) and drilled aluminium pedals plus red lighting all serve to give the impression that you shouldn’t be relaxing too much in here.
Hit the red starter button and the 2.0 litre VTEC powerplant rumbles into life; the engine, as with the old model, is the heart and soul of this car. Blip the floor-hinged throttle and you’re greeted with a ferocious bark from the twin exhausts – the VTEC engine truly is a masterclass in automotive engineering.
Soundtrack-wise, the Type R is at its very best in a tunnel. Buy one if you live near a tunnel. If you buy a Type R and you don’t live near a tunnel, I’d suggest moving house, because this is as close as you’re going to get to screaming through that one in Monaco in an F1 car. Keep your foot buried in second gear and the throaty rumble rises to a rock-hard wail as the noise bounces off the walls and back at you – hit 7,800rpm and all hell breaks loose as the full 198bhp peaks. Stretch it all the way to its 8,000rpm red line, and you’ll be out of the tunnel and turning round for another go. You’ll be late for work, but your boss will understand.
Devilishly good fun
From standstill, 0-60 takes a rapid 6.6 seconds and its devilishly good fun to hustle along, provided you keep the engine revving at more than 5,500rpm. Let it drop and acceleration is less than impressive, although this’ll give you an excuse to drop it down a cog with a sublimely short change and push the revs back into the stratosphere.
If you’re used to driving a car with a normal engine, it’ll take a while before you’re happy keeping the revs so high, but believe me - you’ll soon learn to love it. The six-speed gearbox is an absolute treat to use, and the combination of a rev-happy engine and slick, short-throw ratios make enthusiastic progress a real joy.
A long journey in the previous generation Type R would make your ears bleed and traumatise your spine, but thankfully this one is a good deal more refined. Wind and road noise are both significantly lowered and at a cruise even the engine note is subdued, becoming more audible only when you start to push it.
It also rides better than its predecessor, and also better than some of its rivals. It’s obviously still a fairly firm ride, but it doesn’t bounce or crash; throw it into a corner and it grips hard, pushing you into the side of your seat and heartily resisting running wide.
The Type R is still lighter than many of its competitors, and while it’s tubby compared to the original concept of the hot hatch, it feels nimble and quick around corners.
The steering is electrically-assisted, and fortunately offers a level of feedback and involvement often lost in electric systems. It doesn’t feel artificial or suddenly weight up as you tackle a corner.
No compromise
Talking of rivals, the Honda is also quite competitively priced. Starting at £17,600, you don’t get a whole lot of toys for your money but, as I mentioned before, another grand gets you the GT spec and it’s worth the extra outlay. Expect to get just over 30mpg on average, and also expect to see a fair amount of your money again come resale time – residuals are still strong for these cars.
Die-hard fans of the original will see this Type R as a compromise. They shouldn’t. The fact that the Type R is easier to live with on a day-to-day basis just betters the car as an all rounder. Committed track-day fans are probably still better off with the old model, but if you’re going to use your Type R every day, there’s very little the new one does wrong.
Designed and built for the Playstation generation, it still sounds like an F1 car, handles like a gutsy go-kart and finally, has been endowed with the right sort of predatory looks to give it the street cred it always deserved.
ENGINE: 2.0 VTEC
PERFORMANCE: 0-60: 6.6sec, 146mph
ECONOMY: 31mpg (combined)
PRICE: from £17,600
OUR PICK: The GT
VERDICT: A well-dressed hooligan, but capable of good behaviour
SHOOT LOCATION: Aylesford
Words by Michael Palmer, pictures by Matthew Richardson