The Fast & The Flawed

It’s The Fwd Nurburgring Lap Record Holder, But Does That Make The Civic Type R A Brilliant Hot Hatch? John Carey Decides.

- John Carey

THE further you are from the Honda Civic Type R, the better it looks. It’s hard to say exactly how far is far enough. Just keep walking until the details of its designer-frenzy exterior begin to blur…

It’s hard to believe this hot hatch comes from the same company whose studios once turned out the calm and cleanly elegant shape of the 2003 Accord Euro. The new Civic Type R is instead a visually shouty assembly of aesthetic offences.

Honda’s design language may be incoherent gibberish lately, but this hasn’t entirely extinguished the brand’s appeal. More than 250 customers ordered the new Type R even before the official price – $50,990 – was announced.

Maybe the deposit-placers have more faith in Honda’s engineers rather than disdain for the Civic Type R’s designers. It was engineers, after all, who carved the cornerstone of the company’s reputation. And, what’s more, the new Civic Type R has proven than it’s fast. A development car running on road-legal tyres recorded a 7m44s Nurburgring lap time back in April. It’s the best ever lap time there, claims Honda, by a front-drive car.

Fast lap times aren’t a guarantee of all-round greatness, but maybe the Civic Type R engineers got it as right as the car’s designers got it wrong…

The Type R is based on the new Civic hatch that recently went on sale in Australia. But while the regular line-up is produced in Thailand, the hot version is made in England. Honda’s big Swindon factory is, in fact, the only one in the world assembling the Civic Type R. But the USA is where the Civic Type R’s engine is made. The turbocharged and direct-injected 2.0-litre four is from a Honda facility in Ohio that has been building the engine, designed specifically for the Type R, since 2015.