First Drive: Honda Civic Type R

These aerodynamic aids, which actually create downforce rather than merely reducing lift, are in the interests of hurling the car ever faster around a race track. And on Monday April 3rd, Christian Menzel, the Porsche Supercup driver, manhandled this new Type R round the 12.3 miles and 154 turns of the old Nordschleife track at the Nürburgring in a class-record 7min 43.8sec.

That’s about seven seconds faster than this car’s short-lived predecessor and a little over three seconds faster than the previous hot-hatch record holder, VW's Golf GTI Clubsport S. It’s not just the aerodynamics, which have given the Type R wings, either. The new car is based on this year’s five-door Civic with its re-adoption of a full multi-link rear suspension, which adds to stability under braking and cornering. Both standard and Type R Civics are built at Honda’s Swindon plant, which will also supply US markets.

This new all-independently sprung chassis is much stiffer than the old and the Type R underbody is even glued as well as welded to increase rigidity.

Macpherson-strut front suspension gets an expensive dual-link system, which separates steering and suspension loads to reduce torque steer. The chassis also gets a three-position dynamic adjuster, which varies the damper valves, steering weight, throttle response, stability and traction control and the way the engine is automatically blipped on down-changes. The settings are the default setting of Sport, which is book-ended by Comfort and track mode +R.

There aren’t many changes to the transverse-mounted, 316bhp/295lb ft, 1,996cc twin-cam engine. It still has a conventional Mitsubishi turbo, but with sodium-filled valves, oil-cooled pistons and an exhaust manifold cooling jacket. The variable exhaust valve lift mechanism and the variable camshaft timing have been recalibrated to speed exhaust gas flow and gain another 10bhp.  

The engine drives the front wheels through a six-speed manual transmission and a Quaife-type, helical-cut limited-slip differential. Top speed is 169mph, 0-62mph in 5.8 seconds, with 36.7mpg in the NEDC Combined cycle (we got 21mpg) and 176g/km of CO2. It costs from £30,995 and the GT version, which comes with parking sensors, satnav, dual-zone air-conditioning, dashboard highlights and folding mirrors, costs another £2,000.

The cabin is crammed with go-faster surface changes and shouty red fabrics, inserts and lamps. It's nicely made and the fabrics are pleasant to the touch, but compared with Golf, it's as if you opened a door expecting the British Library and instead found a Little Mix encore. Standard sports seats manage the difficult trick of being supportive and comfy, though that traditional Type R aluminium-topped gear lever gets too hot to touch on a sunny afternoon. Since the new Civic's fuel tank has been moved from under the front seats to under the rears, you also sit lower at the steering wheel. There's enough space for three adults on the rear bench, though the front seats restrict legroom, and the boot is a highly respectable 420 litres.

Thankfully the driving dynamics selector is down by the gearlever, which makes it a lot simpler to adjust than negotiating your way round the centre screen, which has good graphics but completely confusing control logic.

Start her up and the engine sounds a bit less buzzy and tinny than its predecessors, as that third exhaust pipe calms the engine pulses at low and medium revs – well make that slightly less buzzy... It's a strong performer, but the conventional turbo and the high revving nature means at low speeds it's quick rather than mega fast. That helps with the torque steer which is only evident if you provoke it and the very short gearing (70mph in sixth gear is 2,700rpm) means that the engine is spinning hard enough not to feel gutless.

Push the rev counter past 4,000rpm, however and all hell lets loose, with a forceful, full-blooded flood of power to the front wheels. And it simply doesn't let off the charge, even with the red change-up light flashing 19 to the dozen.

So to the handing, which with much-improved geometry control of the rear wheels has a playfulness to go with the outstanding grip. Those specially developed Continental tyres turn in wonderfully precisely and will slide gently if you ease the throttle. Honda's natural caution and that down force means the Type R isn't as tail happy as some rivals, but it's most certainly adjustable.

On the track, that adjustability allows you to get the nose lined up for corners and have some fun in the turns, too, although if you study the Nordschleife video, Menzel has to be accurate and precise to get that record time. The steering isn't packed with feel (often a result of that dual-link geometry), but there's enough and it loads up nicely as cornering forces increase – it feels precise if not that progressive and the variable ratio system feels slightly odd manoeuvring at low speeds. On the whole, however, the chassis is well mannered and docile, which is especially true of the powerful Brembo brakes that give a lovely feedback to the pedal and have seemingly unfading ability, even on the track. 

As might be expected, it rides firmly and on bumpy roads, even Comfort feels busy. I managed to locate a bit of old East-German cobbled road and the ride was hard enough to loosen your fillings. Also at sustained full speed on a German autobahn, there was a choppy feel from the rear as that giant spoiler pushed the body into the road. On decent A roads, however, it felt tolerably supple and progressive in Sport; jiggly in +R.

Could you live with it? Of course, it's a Honda, it'll be unfailingly quick and reliable. You could drive it every day, but would you want to? For some folk, those bewinged looks would preclude any sort of longer-term commitment than a cursory reading of a road test. At this price, it's a budget supercar and probably the best handling hot hatch of the moment, for some the looks are the key selling points, for others it would have been nice if it didn't shout it quite so loudly.

What was that about Marmite?