Honda Civic Type R 2017 first drive

This can mean, too, that there’s less road feel through the steering, but when it comes to 316bhp and 295lb ft acting through the front wheels alone, that’s a compromise worth making. The Civic's engine drives through a six-speed manual gearbox - there’s no flappy paddle option – via a limited-slip mechanical differential. As well as all this, the Honda will brake an inside front wheel, so it feels less like you’re munching the front tyres for the sake of it.

And the engine? It’s still a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo. It retains the same block as the old model, in fact, with a lone, single-scroll turbocharger and VTEC variable valve timing on the exhaust valves. There’s more cooling all around the engine and on some detail bits inside: the oil cooler is now water-cooled rather than air-cooled, there are oil channels in the pistons and the valves are silicon-filled, all for better heat dissipation. 

But it’s the work on the exhaust that has liberated the most power. The exhaust manifold has a water jacket around it, and the rest of the system is freer-flowing and easier-breathing than before. Giving the engine this easier exhaust while maintaining lower temperatures at the top of the engine means the power can be turned up without the engine being inclined to pre-ignite, or knock. The reason for the small, third, central exhaust tube, meanwhile, is to reduce boom at lower revs and on smaller throttle openings. Negative pressure going back into the pipe apparently reduces resonance at low revs but then helps the air flow out at higher revs.

What else? There are drive modes, of course: three of them, rather than the previous two. The car starts in Sport mode by default, but on each side of it are Comfort and +R, in which the aggression of the adaptive dampers, steering weight and throttle response are ramped down (Comfort) or up (+R). The steering itself has a variable ratio; it’s slower just around straight ahead, quickening as you wind lock on, a common and neat trick to combine high-speed stability with a feeling of agility at lower speeds. Which, given that this is a 169mph car that also purports to be a sporty hot hatchback, is why the Type R has it.

Were there an Individual drive mode (which there isn’t) in which you could select different elements from the car’s character, I suspect I’d have the engine in +R, blip off, steering in Comfort and dampers in Sport. But given how complicated the touchscreen makes even the simplest things, I doubt doing so would come easily.

The driving controls are good, though. The steering is accurate, responsive and well geared. As a result of that and the aerodynamics, the Civic Type R is an exceptionally stable car even above 150mph, a speed it reaches easily, given that it has that fulsome 316bhp at 6500rpm, 295lb ft from 2500-4500rpm and 7% shorter gearing than the previous Civic Type R.

There’s some turbo lag, of course. I can’t imagine circumstances in which there wouldn’t be, given that it has 158bhp per litre. It’s at its worst at low revs but hangs around through the mid-range a bit, too, to the extent that you sometimes have to pre-empt the moment you’d want to get back on the power, even on a circuit.

On track, though, the Civic is exceptional. It feels keener, lighter and more agile than the Volkswagen Golf R or Ford Focus RS - which, at 1380kg at the kerb and with only front driven wheels, it should well do. But although it has mammoth amounts of power going through the front wheels, this isn’t a car that forces you simply to manage where the front end goes. Changes Honda says it has made to the Type R’s character include giving it more toe-in at the rear under braking, to enhance stability. But there’s more engagement and involvement to it than that. There's more poise, and a tiny amount of adjustability on the throttle - albeit not as much as in the Renault Mégane RS 275, in which lifting or trailing the throttle shifts the car’s line immensely. The Civic, meanwhile, always remains secure. If I were to do a track day, I’d want to make my sessions short and take a torque wrench and trolley jack, to swap the 20in fronts and rears around so I didn’t muller the front pair in a day, but the Type R copes with hard throttle inputs remarkably well, given what Honda has asked it to do.