this is the 2018 honda civic type-r it's easily one of the most anticipated, launches for the brand in the past decade riding on a new platform the new type our promises to the pure driving fun is it.
familiar, the layout is almost identical, so what I'm gonna do is focus on all the little bits you get extra with the type-r if you want to see a more in-depth view of the infotainment system or the general lay up and have a look at Honda Civic review place in the description but before that let's start
her up so foot on the clutch and on the brake and hit the engine start/stop button to go, the first thing you should notice is just how much of red there is in the cabin, there's red elements going off through
on the dash, the type also gets red lever, on the inserts and a flat-bottom steering wheel, these full carbon fiber inserts and of course these lovely red bucket seats that trimmed in suede you also get the type r exclusive red seatbelts the door panels are aligned with the suede material as well same with the faux carbon fiber trim and the door panel of course for power window switches, window locks power door locks, power mirrors the type r has the full suite of Honda sensing so lane keep assist parking sensors and collision. mitigation braking and also traction control off for a bit of fun the mats aligned same red stitching and type our branding, and lovely red Honda logo on the steering wheel.
in the center you find your 6-speed manual transmission - stubby little gear knob with short shifts and like every other Civic it's placed quite high relative to the driver. so using it as an absolute joy break cord with electronic parking brake type our branding and this you won't find in any other Civic are the drive mode selectors so there's three modes to choose from Comfort Sport which is actually enabled by default and race Plus, so what they'll do is alter the throttle response steering wheel weight and also the adaptive dampers depending on the setting.
you can also see those selections come through on the driver's information display, one thing I do want to mention is just how comfortable these bucket seats are, they're very firm as they should be but also incredibly, comfortable the bolsters don't go too. high so it's still ok to get in and out of and it also dips down here at the hip area so we shut her off and let's have a look at the back seats the suede trim does stop from the front seat so now it's just a plain cloth hard scratchy plastic tweeter no rear air vents unfortunately integrated headrests, happily the back seats still get these signature red seatbelts in terms of room. I'm 6 foot 3 190 centimeters and my head is just brushing the headliner sitting behind myself there would be a little bit of a problem due to these due to the seats on the back of the seats is this. carbon fiber esque plastic material it looks like it could scratch quite easily.
so we just have to let time tell but overall in terms of space it's not too bad, I'd have to say it's a lot more comfortable in the rear seats than it looks I wouldn't be sitting behind myself but behind a shorter driver it shouldn't be too much of a drama, you join me under the exhaust which has been
one of the biggest talking points of the new Type R so I get it right, so if you look over there the exhaust gases go through a catalytic converter, first and then enters into a central resonator then it comes through here where it splits into two mufflers and also acenter Helmholtz chamber which will get rid of any unwanted frequencies then from those two mufflers comes down here and it splits into three exhaust pipes and hopefully that was a quick explanation of the type has fancy exhaust this being a hatchback you'd expect it to be practical and thankfully the type R is with a good open and the rear seats up there's 414 litres of space,
there are four cargo tie-down, hooks this will sow a bag for scale attack to show you underneath unfortunately there is no spare tire only a tire sealant kit and probably my favorite feature is this little cargo cover it comes up from the side instead of having a large kind of fixed unit that comes up from the back seats, so remains compact and it still does its purpose once again being a hatchback you can easily fold the rear seats and they lie almost completely flat but there is a small step up here and onto the most important part the driving experience, a major concern when the typo was first announced was that it was going to be front-wheel drive and sending 306 horsepower to just the front two wheels was going to make for a very nervous type.
so what Honda engineers did was install a helical limited-slip diff which more accurately distribute to talk to each wheel and a new steering knuckle design allowed the steering access to be moved closer to the vertical centerline of those wheels in conjunction with the wider wheels eliminated the asymmetrical design found in most cars, that's great but what does that all mean we did some acceleration tests that unfortunately we didn't get on camera but what it meant was that there was no torque steer at all a true testament to the engineers is that you forget it's even front-wheel drive steering weight can be adjusted but I found that the standard setting hit the right spot although the turning circle of the Type R was nothing to write home about at eleven point eight meters this makes any turn a three-pointer and around town you feel it just isn't very nimble for a small car with 400 Newton meters of torque on offer starting at just 2500 rpm accelerating in a higher gear didn't feel like it was lugging the engine, the gearstick feels exactly how you wanted to shorten and shock throws the clutch was also easy to modulate although I did stall at once promised it was only want
in a nutshell I simply didn't want to give the car back a new type r was what enthusiasts was screaming at honda to make and judging by the permanent smile I had on my face was always driving it, it looks like they did a good job so