Honda scheduled the Australia launch of their new 2018 Honda Civic Type R for the second half of this year and to make hype even bigger, this vehicle just became the fastest front wheeler to hit the Nurburgring race track!
Honda’s lap time was 7 minutes and 43.8 seconds which was enough to overthrow the Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport S (also known as the GTI 40 Years Edition). The Golf GTI Clubsport S managed to finish the track in 7 minutes and 49.21 seconds. That happened in May last year.
Performance improvements and aerodynamic upgrades are surely features that helped Honda Civic Type R to achieve this time. Among performance tunes, there were wider tires, wider track, elongated wheelbase, large rear wing, higher torsional stiffness, body kit and a whole new back multi-link suspension system.
Under the hood of this vehicle we have a 2.0-liter turbocharged four cylinder petrol engine which can produce 235kW of power and 400Nm of torque. This is distributed to the front wheels through a six-speed manual transmission.
We first saw this beauty at the Geneva Motor Show which was held earlier this year, and the competition of the Civic Type R will consist of small, powerful hatchbacks and sedans including vehicles such as Subaru WRX STI, Volkswagen Golf R and Ford Focus RS. However, all of these are all-wheel drives.
This car is set to be produced at Honda’s Swindon facility in the UK. We believe that it will hit roads of Australia in the fourth quarter of this year. However, we do not know the exact date.
We also have no official info on prices and specs, but there are rumors about the starting price being around $50,000 which is quite similar to their rival Ford Focus RS.
