watto
Unloved and lacking a title
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2005
- Messages
- 6,003
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
- Car(s)
- 2013 Holden Cruze SRi Series 2
From The Sunday Times
May 27, 2007
Honda Civic Type R
Yes, it?s a radical new concept ... the boneshaker
You might fondly imagine that the drive outside my house is full to overflowing with all the latest cars, their tanks brimmed with fuel and the insurance paid. And you?d be right.
This week it looks like the long-term car park at Heathrow out there. Under the pergola is an Audi R8 that I?d very much like to drive, but I can?t get it round my Lambo without driving over the herb garden. And I can?t move the Lambo because it?s blocked in by my Mercedes, which hasn?t been used for two months and now won?t start.
Round the back there?s a Golf GTI which arrived for no reason that I can fathom, a Vauxhall Corsa, a spare Volvo XC90, an Aston Martin Vantage ? in white, so that won?t be going anywhere ? and a perfectly hideous Mitsubishi people carrier of some kind.
But then the last Mitsubishi people carrier that came here turned out to be rather good so I?d like to take this new one for a spin, but I can?t because it?s blocked in by a Ford Ka that doesn?t seem to belong to anyone.
In fact the only car I?ve been able to use these past few days has been the new Honda Civic Type R, and if you?re a young man you?re probably salivating with envy at this point.
The old Civic Type R was the car of choice for those who listen to their stereos with the bass on 10 and the treble turned off altogether, people whose idea of facial hair is a faint earwig on their top lip.
Older people were surprised by its sudden popularity, but not me, simply because it is impossible to be surprised by anything the earwig faces do these days, from wearing their trousers in the manner of a Los Angeles inmate, to the Bacardi bruisers they buy for their girlfriends. Who say ?like? after every other word.
My daughter, who?s a bona fide young person, has taken to wearing her school summer dress as though it?s some kind of bushel, with the waistline around her chest and a belt around her bottom. And anyone who chooses to do this is plainly going to make an unusual choice when it comes to saying which car?s cool and which car?s not.
The old Civic Type R won favour not because it was the best hot hatchback but precisely because everyone?s parents ? me ? were still harping on about the brilliance of the Golf GTI and how sad it was that Peugeot had gone off the boil.
But once the youth moved into Honda-land they found that, actually, the Civic had a number of things going for it. It was relatively cheap to insure ? and thanks to a big Honda scene in Japan there were many performance and styling parts available over the internet.
There was something else, too. It was actually very good fun to drive. It wasn?t the fastest car in the world but for the money there was very little else that could put such a huge smile on your face. The way its little engine revved, and revved willingly, to 8,250 was always a rare treat.
Even today there are global websites for owners of this pocket rocket. Every night young men are rushing back from the call centres where they work to offer and discover tasty titbits about their beloved Hondas. ?Kind of like, you know like? say the forums. Over and over again.
So that?s why your kids are going to be interested this morning in what the new Civic Type R is like. You should maybe read this out to them. They may even grunt, or if you?re really lucky, shrug.
Here goes then, and first of all it looks fantastic. When Honda first showed off the basic Civic a couple of years ago we were all stunned by the detailing. The triangular exhaust pipes, the door handles that appeared to have come from a 1950s fridge and of course the Space: 1999 dashboard.
But then they put their new car on the road and oh dear. To save ?1.50 they?d all been fitted with the wheels from a baby buggy. So you had this huge, super high-tech body with its art deco detailing sitting on the foundations of a Silver Cross pram. And there?s nothing that says ?Hey, I?m not a serious player? in the car world more than a set of inappropriately small wheels. See the old Vauxhall Nova for details.
The Type R gets round this because its wheels fill the arches properly. That simple thing, all on its own, transforms the Civic into a properly exciting-looking car. The sort of thing you?d buy for your son, and then keep.
Don?t, though. Because almost everything else about it is rubbish.
First of all there?s the driver?s seat, which is adjusted with a ratchet rather than a wheel. This means you can?t fine-tune the angle of the backrest. You either sit bolt upright, like you?re at the kitchen table, or you lounge, like Sylvia Kristel in those early Emmanuelle films.
Next there?s the rear spoiler. From the outside it looks great, arching across the rear window like that, but from the inside it means you cannot see the car behind. You may as well use the rear-view mirror as a handy place to stick Postit notes for all the good it does.
And now we move into the realms of what you get for the money. I?ll save you the bother of looking it up. It?s diddly squat. Not even sat nav, which is a nuisance when you?re on that big roundabout in Rugby and all the signposts are pointing to places you?ve never heard of. Leamington or Southam? How about neither.
Engine? Well what they?ve done is taken the 198bhp unit from the old Civic and popped it, pretty much unchanged, into the new one. That, of course, would be fine if the new one weighed the same as the old one, but it doesn?t. It weighs a whole lot more.
This then is like saying, ?Hmmm. We need a new engine to power the Queen Mary. I know.
Let?s get one out of that jet ski over there.?
Yes, it is still a fine engine. I really do love the revviness of all those VTEC units. But the new Civic is bound to be slightly slower and slightly less economical than the old one. And where?s the progress in that Honda, with your Earth Car and your Power of Dreams ad campaign? The fact of the matter is that Ford, Renault, Vauxhall and Volkswagen can all sell you a hatchback with much more get up and go.
Cunningly, Honda has tried to mask this lack of oomph by fitting the new Type R with a suspension system that, plainly, is made out of bricks. Even my wife, who likes hard-riding cars and thinks the Subaru Impreza is ?a bit soft?, was alarmed by the way the Honda leapt and crashed down the road.
Me? I think it?s a disgrace. I don?t care what it?s like on a track, or when it?s doing handbrake turns in a supermarket car park: on a normal road, on a normal day, the ride quality is completely unacceptable. Anyone whose body is held together with a skeleton is going to come home every night in several agonising pieces.
And on top of all this the car I drove could not find Radio 2. It just locked on to Radio 1, which completed my discomfort as surely as if I?d slammed my head in the door.
All things considered, then, I pretty much hated it. It is nowhere near as good as a Golf GTI because, to be honest, it?s nowhere near as good as walking. This, I feel sure, will guarantee its success among the earwig boys.
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