Driving Honda’s potent Civic Type R five-door hatch today – this car is one for the true performance believers – an exhilarating car to drive – a five-door front wheel drive hatch that’s inspiring in all it does – supremely confident and superbly set up to offer enormous driving enjoyment – not inexpensive at $72,600 drive-away but just so rewarding. A highly tuned 2.0-litre engine driving the front wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox and a limited slip differential with the availability of three drive modes – it’s a car that you can drive on a light throttle around town with great ride comfort and with a dual mode exhaust that’s somewhat muted but on a stronger throttle unleashes an instant response with an aggressive exhaust note, especially in R mode, where the front wheels actually scramble for grip. With adaptive dampers providing great ride and stiffness when required and with generous sized and supportive front sports seats the Honda Civic Type R is an enormously comfortable yet competent sportster – the rapid performance matched by sharp steering response and fabulous braking – I can’t remember driving a more enjoyable sports hatch, the manual gear shift so slick and responsive. Yes, its expensive but such outstanding competence comes at a price. Honda today once again building some impressive product.

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