The Honda Civic Type R is the epitome of Japanese driving culture – or: the shortest way from an idea to its essence. And, of course, it’s white.
It’s a bit like finally getting a ration of water after a long march through the desert – and using it to wet your hair. Gotta look cool. And just like that, a completely new perspective opens up: Guarded by crash barriers on both sides, you go full speed into the past. Long straight, hard braking zone, eyes fixed on the exit of the curve, the left foot hits the clutch, downshift with electronic throttle-blipping. Turn. Where can you find that in a modern car today? And that pretty much says everything there is to say about the Honda Civic Type R.
Did we forget something? Okay, the location. We’re at the Norisring, Nuremberg’s street circuit, often somewhat disparagingly called the Franconian Monaco. Yet another blast from the past. A motorsport racing circuit in the middle of a German city! Three sets of crash barriers are in place here all year round, along with FIA-approved catch fencing. The curbs are painted in the Japanese national colors of red and white, as if the local tourism office had personally taken care of the matter. The Norisring will be playing host to the DTM this June. This is the perfect turf for the Civic Type R. Painted white, of course, just like the car that gave Honda its first Formula 1 victory in 1965 at the Mexican Grand Prix. With a certain Richie Ginther behind the wheel.
All Type Rs, be it the NSX, the Acura Integra or the Civic, have always been competition cars, ever since the debut in 1992. Motorsport is Honda’s way of throwing down the gauntlet and challenging its powerful opponents. The Civic Type R is no exception, leaving the competition in its wake at the prestigious Nürburgring and setting the front-wheel-drive lap record at Suzuka. This is not entirely surprising. After all, as anyone who is even a little familiar with Japanese culture might suspect, the test driver probably only dared to leave the track when the record had been set. Saving face and all that.
Now, outside of the times when it is explicitly used as a racing circuit, the Norisring forms part of the public road system of the city of Nuremberg, which means that the regular road rules apply here – including, most significantly, a speed limit of 50 km/h. That certainly leaves plenty of time to think on the long straights. About the car’s design, for example. Compared to its direct predecessor, the new Honda Civic Type R has a rather gentle appearance. It doesn’t look at all pumped up on steroids and seems pretty harmless all around. Okay, there’s that rear spoiler . . . and three exhaust pipes! But otherwise everything has been polished to perfection. With its predecessor, you needed the unwavering strength of character of a warrior monk to be seen on public roads with it. Or you were under twenty-five years old and wanted to save yourself the hassle of assembling an entire Fast & Furious body kit yourself, instead preferring to roll up at the gas station ready-made – with the blissful knowledge of being able to hold monologues for hours on end to your tanned-from-the-solarium junkyard friends about what is surely the world’s best front-wheel drive and six-speed manual transmission without hearing a single objection.
If he wanted, this twenty-five-year-old could spend half the night quoting motoring journalists about the new Type R. Which would be an almost unbelievably maudlin piece of adulation. Even the most hardened petrol heads have rarely written more than two paragraphs of text before abandoning all professional objectivity and joining the chorus of superlatives: “Honda has stuck to its guns.” (Ollie Marriage, Top Gear). “If you don’t want to thrash the lever through the gates with this transmission, you probably don’t feel much else in life either.” (Stefan Wagner, motor1.com). Christoph Jordan from Autorevue simply put it this way: “The hottest horse in Honda’s stables.”
If there’s still time and his friends are cool with hanging out some more at the gas station, the Civic Type R enthusiast can simply go on about the interior. “Cockpit” is the only permissible and professional term here: sports seats, edged in red, that can only be adjusted manually, side support like at a very good concert in the front row, an Alcantara steering wheel, plus LEDs in the display behind the wheel that rise towards the center, preparing you for the right shift point, just like in a racing car. Shortly before the engine overspeeds, an acoustic signal sounds to accompany the red flashing lights. This functional, quasi-racing interior mocks any gimmicky zeitgeist with a disrespect that makes you blissfully smile from ear to ear. After all, nobody buys a Japanese katana sword for chopping their organic vegetables with, now do they?
If you do choose to look at the interior through the lens of the zeitgeist, you might find its opulence almost offensive. The exquisite loses some of its charm. Admittedly, this only applies to persons of weak character who are easily influenced by what the so-called public dictates. But the more steadfast among us will gladly climb aboard to search for the old, fading spirit of independence and self-determination behind the wheel in these times of electric mobility and autonomous cars. And we will find it. All we have to do is start the engine, grasp the aluminum gear knob and guide it forcefully through the gears. You can do this even when standing still. Then you’ll realize that hand shifting is not just a romanticization of something from the past. Half of the registered BMW Z4s and Toyota Supras, for example, are manual transmissions. And even Porsche hasn’t given up on the manual gearbox in the age of the super-precise and ingenious PDK. That’s enormously comforting. So they’re still out there, the others, wandering through the desert until you pour some water into their hands . . .
TEXT & PHOTOS: Matthias Mederer – ramp.pictures
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