The Honda Civic Type-R: an uncompromising hot hatch with great performance, right? But one that is hard-riding, noisy and not particularly inspiring until you rev it up to nearly 7,500rpm? Wrong.

That may have been true for the first-generation model, but Honda has listened carefully to feedback from its customers and this time around, the Type-R’s is considerably easier to live with on a day-to-day basis.

Honda is at pains to insist that this doesn’t mean the Type-R’s gone soft, though. There’s 198bhp on offer from the 2.0-litre i-VTEC engine and performance has not been watered down: 0-62mph still comes up in 6.6 seconds and top speed is a pretty healthy 146mph, should you have access to a track or an airstrip to fully test this out. It’s also actually more rewarding at lower engine speeds: since the maximum torque of 142lb-ft now peaks at 5,600rpm, rather than at 6,500rpm, in-gear acceleration has been improved, and you can make swift progress without having to set the engine screaming. Well, not quite so loudly, anyway.

The Civic Type-R comes in three-door form only, with a choice of standard or GT specification levels: the GT pack adds front fog lights, dual-zone climate control, cruise control, side curtain airbags, a lockable glovebox, power-folding door mirrors and automatic headlights.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Car Reviews [t]. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.