HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ONE WITHOUT THE WING? I'M not convinced I have. Put down £23,000 for a Honda Accord Type R in late 1998 and, were you so inclined, you could politely ask your local Honda dealer to leave its prominent aerodynamic aid off the specification list. If you'd opted for Nighthawk Black Pearl or Titan Silver Metallic rather than this car's Vesuvio Red, it'd be in the running for one of the decade's most anonymous-looking performance cars.
But nobody actually did that, right? It takes a certain kind of buyer to choose a family saloon with a set of Recaros and a red line at seven-five, and that buyer is probably going to leave the big carry-handle on the back right where it is, subtlety be damned. Along with the Escort Cosworth, there may not be another car whose wing-delete option was so roundly - and justifiably - ignored.
Other things you're liable to ignore in the Accord Type R include following traffic, whose presence the wing neatly obscures like a redaction line on a government document, and the consequential fuel bills from spending as much time as is reasonably achievable exploring the promised lands above 5800rpm. Ignoring your passenger occasionally grabbing for the door handle or one of the Recaro's raised bolsters is, like the rear wing, entirely optional.
If today's spectacular and smaller-winged 'FL5' Honda Civic Type R (get used to the chassis codes folks, this is a Honda story you're reading and there's more where that one came from) has only one real weakness, it's that it feels more like a sports saloon than the more compact and rambunctious hot hatchbacks it competes against. Accord-sized, almost.
Accord-sized exactly, as it turns out: at 4595mm long, the current Civic is to the millimetre the same length as Honda's first four-door Type R. Today it makes the Civic feel a class size above most other hatches, though thanks to Honda's obsession with mass, not a class above in weight.
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BEST BUYS BMW M CARS
THE PERFORMANCE CAR LANDSCAPE WOULD HAVE looked very different over the last five decades without BMW. Its M division, founded in 1972, has produced some of the best driver’s cars ever to hit the road, and in the process has provided a stream of benchmark models for its rivals to chase. In recent years, stricter emissions regulations, downsizing and electrification have seen some of those rival cars falter, yet by and large BMW’s M machines have remained strong. In fact, some rank among the greatest the department has made think of the eCoty-winning M2 CS and M5 CS while others are the only options worth recommending in their respective segments. Price tags have risen with performance, however, putting those latest offerings out of reach for many, but the marque’s popularity means there are numerous earlier M models available on the second-hand market for far more attainable figures. Here are four of our favourites.
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Want to fit the very best tyres to your performance car? The annual evo Tyre Test identifies the cream of the current crop
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A liberal sprinkling of Honda Type R fairy dust on the late-'90s Accord produced an unlikely evo icon and a genuine performance bargain
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Where best to store some of Toyota’s most prized and valuable racing superstars? Under the wind tunnel at its Cologne HO, of course...
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It develops 819bhp. It has no turbochargers, no hybrid assistance. Ferrari describes it as the most complete GT it's ever made. And it’s so proud of its mighty V12 engine it’s named the whole car after it. This is the 12 Cilindri
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Japan has been responsible for many of our favourite driver's cars of recent decades, but their ancestors are often much less well known. We take a look at where the big manufacturers began their performance car journeys
DEFINITELY. NO MAYBE
Three Japanese performance icons - Lexus LFA, Subaru Impreza 22B and Nissan GT-R. Over three days on some of our favourite roads we explore what makes each uniquely thrilling, but also the car culture that unites them
1V3.0
F1, P1... and now W1. The next chapter in McLaren's Ultimate Series is the British firm's challenger to the forthcoming new Ferrari hypercar and a £2million, 1257bhp, hybrid-powered, technical tour de force
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One man’s dream to build the perfect Porsche 911 has resulted inthis aaticMously restored and enhanced classic. We delve into the details and take it for a drive
Bentley Continental GT Speed
The new Continental GT is the most powerful Bentley ever, and the beginning of anew plug-in hybrid era for Crewe. But is it still a benchmark grand tourer?
