Type-R is finally here! A full three years after Honda’s three-door hot hatch was introduced in Europe, Honda Middle East at last introduces the sizzling sports Civic to our region. Considering that most Japanese cars have a four-year life cycle, that’s really rather late in the day.
Still, with the Boxster-baiting S2000 now dead and the Accord V6 Coupe being about as sporty as Honda’s current line-up gets – which is to say, not very at all – the once motor racing-inspired manufacturer was desperately in need of an adrenaline-charged halo car.
Incidentally, the three-door Euro Type-R is not to be confused with the four-door Type-R saloon, which until recently was available in Japan but has been discontinued – the home market now gets this three-door.
By its own admission, pressure from the likes of yours truly and Honda fans in the region forced the manufacturer to give in and make the decision to bring in the Type-R about a year ago. But extra development work was required to homologate the car for the GCC which included tweaking the emissions, fitting Australian spec tyres, and replacing the gear lever knob so it wouldn’t burn an imprint of the change pattern onto your palm every time you punched in a ratio – something other big name manufacturers should take note of. The condenser height was also raised for better cooling and the headlight washers and rear foglight were removed.
Still, if there was any car that three-years on would hardly have aged, it was going to be the hatchback derivative of the Civic.
The wedge-shaped pod-like style of the original concept cars filtered through almost unchanged into road-going reality – these are the most striking looking cars in the entire global Honda line-up.
Its arrowed-head face flows back into a bulbous tear-drop rear, punctuated only by that spoiler seemingly halfway up the rear window glass, although the lower part is actually plastic. The crisp lines give it the look of a blade slicing through the ether – and that’s just when it’s standing still. As soon as you set eyes on this thing you know it’s going to be quick.
The Type-R is a certified hot hatch masterclass. In its segment it’s automotive royalty, so understandably the Civic expects to instantly take the crown wherever it lands. Except that in our market a recently refreshed and equally competent and possibly even more iconic car, already rules as the default hot hatch choice. So the first thing that the ‘new’ Honda has to do is to take on and dispatch the Golf GTI. No easy task.
On paper, the cars are evenly matched. Both feature 2.0-litre four-cylinder engines, but the Golf employs turbocharging to produce 207bhp, whilst the naturally aspirated Civic’s engine whips up 198bhp. The GTI will reach 100kph in 6.9seconds and hit 237kph, the Honda’s figures are 6.6secs and 235kph respectively.
The Golf does have a higher torque figure of 206lb ft from 1700rpm all the way up to 5200rpm, compared to the Type-R’s apparently paltry 142lb ft at 5600rpm, but the Honda counters that deficit by being 126kg lighter overall at 1267kg versus 1393kg.
If you stopped reading now, concluding that these two are pretty much the same car with different badges, you’d be short-changing yourself. They are about as different as they are the same.
Follow us on
