In my day, a Honda Civic looked like the car you would drive if you were going on an IT training course in Milton Keynes and wanted to fit in: reliable, characterless, neither large nor small, fast nor slow. At some point in the intervening decade, the designers or maybe the entire Honda brand have had a midlife crisis.
If I utter the phrase “black with red detailing”, you’ll think you know what I mean; you do not. The body looks like a Batmobile. The wheels look as though they were deliberately conceived as fresh wounds – a kind of Bruce Willis-esque aesthetic statement: “I’m so hard I haven’t even noticed I’m bleeding.” There is a spoiler at the back so substantial and proud that it would only really make sense if this vehicle could fly.
Taxi drivers give you vaudeville thumbs-ups, and young men ogle it, on one occasion at traffic lights swarming round it to touch it. It was like Suddenly Last Summer, with the Civic as Elizabeth Taylor. Another guy pulled up next to me at lights and asked me to rev it so he could hear what it sounded like.
It is insanely powerful. I felt like the Hulk bursting out of his shirt. A top speed of 167mph and a 0-62 of under six seconds are bold but entirely credible claims. It meets no definition of the word “civic” that I can think of.
The engine is pretty noisy, but there’s something about it that sounds more encouraging than invasive. The handling is incredible even if you don’t hit the +R button, which turns the controls an angry red, firms up the suspension so it’s like driving on solid rubber and acts like a formal… no, written… no, embossed invitation to drive too fast. “Dear young idiot, listen to that horsepower! Wouldn’t you like to go much, much faster? How’d you like to corner at 120mph? What do you think I’ll sound like if you rev the hell out of me?” It’s like a love letter from death. OK, that’s melodramatic: a billet doux from irresponsible road use.
The interior has perky elements: I like the sparkling steel of the pedals, the sporty posture forced by the bucket seats and the noisy reds of the seatbelts and suedette. Oddment stowage is pesky – the shelf between driver and passenger sits at an awkward height and the glove compartment sheers away in a style that is meant to suggest dynamism (I’m guessing) but makes it quite hard to reach. The economy is better than you’d expect but, at 38.7mpg combined, nothing to boast about; commensurately, emissions are such that you’d have to park round the corner if you were visiting eco-warriors. You’d have to do that with most people, though: it would be hard to arrive in this car without raising questions about your ego.
Honda Civic Type R: in numbers
Price £32,295
Top speed 167mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 5.7 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 38.7mpg
CO2 emissions 170g/km
Eco rating 6/10
Cool rating 8/10
