CarLoansCalculation - The 2.0-litre turbocharged engine makes 306bhp and 295lb ft, enough to hit 167mph at the end of the Döttinger Höhe straight. The helical limited-slip differential slashes five seconds from the time. Adaptive dampers provide control whether you’re fl ying at Flugpatz or braking hard into Bergwerk. An aerodynamically optimised body with a nearly fl at underfl oor sucks the Civic to the ground at high speed. There are 19-inch alloy wheels and bespoke Continental Sport Contact 6 tyres, four-piston Brembo front brakes with 350mm drilled discs, Dual Axis Strut front suspension… All of it feeds into the Honda calculator to produce an answer of 7min 50.63sec, the current front-wheeldrive lap record (as we go to press, at least!).
Project leader Hisayuki Yagi makes no bones about this being the number-one target throughout development. Not ride quality, not steering feel, not throttle response. He just wanted to be fastest. And, he says, there’s more to come: if someone beats the record with a sensible, useable car, he’ll respond, and Honda UK might have a special edition to punt.
There’s a risk, of course, that this willy-waving could result in a car that’s as suited to real roads as a jet-powered shopping trolley. So we’re giving the Type R our own challenge. I’ll get a day to download Yagi, drive the car on the road, and test its trackday-credentials on the Slovakia Ring (I know, wrong country, wrong circuit, sorry). Meanwhile, a few pages down the road you’ll find Steve Moody and the CAR road-test team in Wales with the Type R and two key rivals. The hardcore Renault Megane Trophy-R will put the Civic’s turbonutterbastard credentials under the microscope like a schoolkid with a worm, a hot day and a twisted sense of humour. The Golf GTI is also on hand, because if the Type R is severely compromised by its track-focus, nothing will expose it like the polished Volkswagen. There’ll be no stopwatches in Wales; we’re interested in which car is most enjoyable drive.
Arriving at the press launch, Honda has the last-generation Civic Type R on hand for us to pore over. It looks small, still modern, strikingly unadorned–quite a contrast to the new car. Every bit of aero addenda is said to be functional and positioned with millimetric accuracy, but it does look like someone’s let the Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey kids into the garage with superglue and an Airfi x kit. Bits are stuck all over the shop.
Those red highlights on the leading edge of the splitter are also key, not for laptime, but for bragging rights. It tells the world we’ve got the top-spec GT. It adds £2300 to the £29,995 sticker, but also auto lights and wipers, parking sensors,
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