Chris Harris Drives The 2017 Honda Civic Type R | Top Gear

ah, the

honda

civic

type

-r, the Yabba sh-1, can you believe I just made a new one? He didn't think the previous one was very old, but now there is more power, a more sophisticated rear suspension and even more offensive styling, but what I want. What I want to know is if this signals the return of the beloved and lost Honda wheel, so I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane at 8,000 rpm. The 2001 Civic Type-r is like a little race car. Independents mention both ends and the double overhead camshaft 1998. The normally aspirated four-cylinder engine with primitive power had a curb weight of 12 to 70 kilograms, was designed to be hit and, boy, were they hit, the big change for the

2017

type

, you can't even see it, it's the rear suspension, it's now completely independent, my kid should always have been on the previous model.

It now has 320 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque, which is far inferior to an Audi RS3, but in a Honda it weighs only one thousand three hundred and eighty kilograms because the interior is made of eggshells and it is only all-wheel drive. two wheels was the first to be an old car, so secretly remember the year 2001. What was going on, well, Big Brother was stupid and Honda was just a weak Civic with a high-powered version that, frankly, rewrote the book on hot hatches. Here it was a car with 200 horsepower. For an engine that revved to 8,000 RPM or so, it only had 200 horsepower but 142 pound-feet of torque and you had to squeeze it by the neck to get it to work, but when it did, it had one of the best

gear

boxes in the world. any production car. and now I'm in one and I tell you what modern hot hatches can learn a lot from this to start with, it seems like a hatchback to me, it's a small baby, disposable, the plastics are hard, it feels cheap and if most of the money is spent in the suspension, the engine and the

gear

box, this thing is perky, it still feels very quick, it still feels very lively, small and compact and when you take it above 6,000 rpm in the VTEC Wow Wow and it's so immediate I'm sitting too high.

The board is completely disgusting. I mean, it's exactly what my generation thought attractive hatchbacks should be, which is pretty important to me, plus this car was affordable, it was over the top, but if you were 23 or 24, you were a graduate, something of money you could afford. buy this and I'm not entirely sure you can buy the car new for 35 grand when Specht, but this just reminds you of the company Honda used to be, on the one hand it's cool to remember the heyday of Honda engineering. I mean, this is a car, but it did indeed have a racing engine with a racing transmission, fully independent rear suspension and you could buy it instead of a Golf GTI, but it was much more specialized and much better to drive, but of course, they took a different route, they removed the independent rear end and gave it a beam, they took the Mickey as a replacement.

This car wasn't that good, this one wore well in fact about 43,000 miles is an example it feels fresh just the way you like it the steering is good the throttle response is exceptional it's not too fast it's very skittish you have to say and here is where I probably have to eat some humble pie I'm not entirely sure I realized it has an independent rear because the The rear is so lively it might as well be a beam, maybe this one needs a little adjustment and some new bushings like new shocks, but I was surprised how lively the rear feels, but everything is immediate and looks like this.

Look at the space between the gear lever and the steering with tiny, you always felt like you were ready to take another gear because in this you row like crazy and it doesn't really go that fast against contemporary hot hatchbacks. very fast compared to these crazy modern turbos, well it's 120 less horsepower right? But never mind as a driving experience, this thing is great, it's an old shed, very very nice, reliable almost 8000rpm engine, so of course you have to take it out late so that when you change gears it comes back in in the VTEC don't get out of the VTEC it is too much to drive a car, which is to ride a two-stroke motorcycle, so the motorcycles you need have to stay in it To enjoy it when you are out of the VTEC, the personality change of the car is remarkable, you just think of La Mina, a noisy hot hatch, quite slow, quite cowardly, that doesn't seem to have any driving comfort, but the moment you get in. bang, what a thing, the driving position is too high, the steering can't be adjusted to achieve only a kind of camber adjustment, which is pretty useless, you feel like you're sitting in some kind of Renault scénic, but otherwise I do not do it.

I know if this serves to remind us how great he could have been on the walls or how Robi he could have become. Anyway, I'm reliably told that this new Civic Type-R is back in the big game, so let's jump into that and see if we can find something. Common DNA and to find out if Honda has um yeah, we found out that these are better days, so the new Civic type-r has an independent rear grip right there. I'm going to do something a little naughty, young man of the world, clap your hands because you're back to your best in that sense, this car feels very sophisticated, your body can handle it, but oh, I'm finding this complicated and conflicting too because there are Lots of good things in this car, but essentially it feels like it was just built. a couple of additional tweaks or some slightly different decisions would have absolutely got it right as is.

I think it's probably filed under the flawed genius section. Let's start with the engine, only 10 horsepower more than the previous version, but a mega engine because it's supercharged but it also has variable valve timing so you want to rev the torque down, at low power, up, it's fantastic , it doesn't sound so good, I'm with the third outlet on the exhaust pipe. I thought we'd go down, more hissing and whistling. and pops and pops there's not much in the steering obviously there's three different settings here there's a normal setting called comfort there's sport there's race in comfort it's light it's electric obviously like everything else nowadays in sport it gets heavy and The race gets even heavier but off-center in comfort mode, it's quite confusing versus where you actually are, so in sport mode you want to get an idea of ​​where you are on the road and it becomes very complicated at this point because the DN a button for lack of a better phrase than the switch here that gives you comfort Sport and race doesn't let you select which of the options you want per area, so you can't have light steering, heavy shock absorbers or stiff shock absorbers and then, in an aggressive powertrain, you have to stay within the parameters that they have established and I think that is a big mistake because for me I want my suspension to be comfortable, I want my steering sporty, I want my engine, transmission career changes, but I can't do it.

That's in comfort, which is actually when I drive on carpet because I want the suspension to be supple, but then I have steering that is too light and indistinct and the engine feels a little flat. I don't know why they don't have it. the ability to have a kind of button to choose your own, as the Germans call it, individual, isn't that how you get your own options? It's a real shame. I think if you want to feel the DNA link between this car and the ep-3, it's the gear change in terms of the quality of the shift, short and precise, it just feels good and then the clutch hits too.

The moment you get in the car, it shifts cleanly, you feel like a good driver because it's so well put together that it's not. able to separate the choice of steering weight, suspension stiffness and throttle aggressiveness, let's just say I think it's a big mistake because it means you're locked into a particular car personality, but having said that suspension mode Comfort is fantastic for UK roads, It feels so luxurious and I can't believe I'm saying this. You don't need to have four-wheel drive. This car has so much traction. 245 sections. Conte is versatile that you don't even think about traction and differential.

The diff lock is so clever that I don't have conversations about wheel fights; You could say it just stays in the middle of the road, even on heavily crowned vehicles, it doesn't detect those cameras and throws you to the other side of the road, it's really really impressive, but here's the thing. Well, there are two things really number one. I think this car looks absurd. I know it's not my job to tell you how things look, but to me this seems a little ridiculous. It seems to attract young people without taste, but. It has a sticker price in the north or thirty thousand pounds that is clearly unattainable, so what do you do?

Who is it addressed to? Because the kind of person who can afford to spend thirty-five thousand dollars on a sports car I don't think wants to be seen. In something as Larry as this, the other aspect is the dynamics. I think everything this car does it probably does a little bit better than a Golf R. I think it's more sophisticated in terms of suspension. I think the engines are better, the gearbox is better, this is a boost. engine, so at 3000 rpm push the accelerator, pull immediately and then go all the way, so at 7000 rpm, I think it's the best engine in a good looking hatchback.

I also love the playfulness of the chassis. I know we're on public roads, but if you want to get this thing moving and you really care about the engine being cold, how do you get all the power over a bumpy road? This fight doesn't talk, yes, the art of front-wheel drive has become really clever, hasn't it? I wonder if the Focus RS really needs to have four-wheel drive because I think this car is more fun and it's also Mildred, but its dynamic advantage over a target is far enough to surpass this cabin, which I'll get to in a second and those.

I don't believe the exterior appearance. I think it's too flashy and the cabin, damn, first of all the seat is great and low. Honda well made. The rest of these things I have to say are quite baffling. For starters, very little can be done on the fly. You can't connect your phone on the go. You can't turn the automatic signal on or off, which is very good for the manual gearbox. Everything else we've done when you stop baffling. I've played this screen here for 5-10 minutes, I don't really know where I am, it's illogical at best, but I'm sure if you live with it you'll get used to it.

I have to give them to them. In that space I also like the boost gauge in the big center readout, but overall this is a glance here and it's like the exterior of the car to me is aimed at someone between 18 and 24 years old and I know the generation of Instagram is rich these days but I don't know how many of them can afford to buy one of these things but I have to applaud Honda for bravely getting back into the hot hatch game, this is a superior car and if you want it. your hot hatches to drive well, this will be at the top of the list, but I will say that it is a big car.

Hot hatches have gotten very, very big, this thing could easily be a deal for you.