2023 Honda Civic Type-R: Real World Test On Road And Track | Top Gear

This is the latest FL5 generation Honda Civic Type R, driven on road and track. It’s likely the last of a dying breed, an old-school front-drive, manual gearbox hot hatch. One with 324bhp, a 171mph top end, some less, er, challenging looks than the old FK8 and a front end so clever it can outwit its own driver. Seriously, it’s capable of some mind-boggling feats.

But is it a hot hatch at all when it’s almost the size of a BMW M3 and costs £47,000? It is when the recipe is right and it’s this good to drive. Honda has been building Civic Type Rs for 25 years, and has honed the latest to within an inch of its life. Nothing has been overlooked. The turbo spins 3 per cent more freely, the flywheel is 18 per cent lighter reducing inertia by 25 per cent, the steering column now wears a larger torsion bar reducing deflections by 60 per cent, revised lower suspension arms improve camber rigidity by 16 per cent and rear body rigidity is up 15 per cent. Many per cents.

Enough in fact for us to declare the new Type R TopGear’s Car of the Year 2022. And not just because of the handling, nor the superb gearshift and the sublime new seats. It’s that it all works in such harmony and is as rewarding to drive as any ‘proper’ sports car you care to mention.

It’s a sublime car, this. More demanding of you than a Golf GTI or R, but infinitely more entertaining and beguiling. What a thing to drive…

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:51 - Stuff It Gets Wrong
2:41 - Stuff It Gets Right
8:58 - Verdict

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[futeditzs]

I love this car! It is simplistic and at the same time aggressive without being over the top. It's nice to see Honda keep the Civic Type-R (pity is the price).

[Peregrine-qpfq]

48k is a lot of dosh, the problem is that that the Golf R is now around 43k, the Audi RS3 57k list price and the M3 around 75k, so you could argue it's good value relatively speaking. It's just every other car is now bloody expensive as well, and don't even start looking at EV prices 😱

[vladimirtalijan]

This is true for every Honda ever made. Even if you get a base Civic, you can feel the right foundation to being a driver's car. I've owned a 2004 Honda Accord Type S (modifed to a TypeR-ish performance) for 13 years only because I couldn't find anything better in that class. Being a relatively big sedan, it drove like magic, even compared to newer manual BMWs or other cars "known" to drive good. The new TypeR is way ahead of everything in it's class and even significantly higher classes, and I wouldn't put VW Golf nowhere near that, it was always at the bottom of drivers cars hot hatches. Hot hatch is not about just putting a bigger motor into a chasis, anyone can do that. Putting together a great hot hatch is maybe even more challanging than doing that for a $100k+ sports car.

[Bryan-vufu]

This camera quality is just unreal. Really gorgeous video.

[iamsam]

Honda graphics and indicators have never been cutting edge, but they work... reliably. Over and over. And I'm glad to see people can witness that tires do not need to be 20" or larger just for the sake of being larger. Not only are they quite a bit more expensive - especially when you carve the roads regularly, wheels general just need to be big enough to accommodate the brake assembly.

[jaughnekow]

It looks like a muscle car and a hot hatch fused together

[canadagt]

Wooow, love it. Ordered one and will get it late 2023 and can't wait to get it 🔥🔥🔥

[gobbel]

Looks like they got a new... Much much better design language. Love it

[goforbroke]

I dig this Ollie dude, he’s not Chris Harris but he’s cool.

[MegaRetr]

Ollie is great. Incredibly skilled driver to go with excellent presenting.

[gregmurnin]

I was waiting for a new Type R but my Mustang finance deal was up....no news of a Type R at that stage....opted for an A45 S with only 400 miles on the the car..it is amazing! My point is love hot is truly wonderful that Honda, Mercedes, Audi, Hyundai, Ford and Volkswagen are still promoting the absolute importance and vitality of the hot the push towards SUV's and also please let's keep the hot hatch amazingness going!!!! They are incredible!

[biseruk]

That machine it's simply phenomenal!!

[mattysea]

Money no object, it’s still at the top of my current list. My inner hooligan has always loved the typeR and the previous “max power” looks have definitely been up my alley but love the sleek looks on this model and I still think fwd is what a hot hatch should be!

[WRNPR]

First R Type that I could actually buy, what a beauty

[mackie]

The Bosch DDU style shift lights are literally the best bit! Size wise… if this is a hot hatch then so was my S5 Sportback.

[Driftuner]

absolute masterpiece indeed, cool presenter, i like his style and wording, more from him!

[velvetrooster]

I like the length of the car and I like how wide it is and I like the ride height as well. I also want to say that I love the fast back styling even though it has 4 doors. I did not like the previous generation of Type R at all. The previous generation, to me, just seems like a car that was trying to stand out and be flashy and appeal to all of those Honda modding enthusiasts. The previous generation also felt like it was trying way too hard to compete with the Subaru STI and copied a lot of styling off of that. On the 2023 car I really like the simplistic styling while still having a race car aesthetic to it also just like the styling of the spoiler on the hatch and I was surprised to find out that it is a hatch as well. I legitimately think this is the first Honda Civic I have ever genuinely liked other than the 81 Honda Civic, which is the best car ever made. It’s a really cool looking car and it looks modern, but it also looks like it can be an every day driver for anybody and I like that although the spoiler takes away a bit of the sleeper aspect of the car but overall I really like the car.

[rodrigo]

really happy to see the review in portugal!

[ollyoverton]

Only TopGear could take the car to a track and spend half the video not on it…

[AsinineComment]

This is a really decent edition (episode? vid? piece?).
Lots of good elements: good structure and sequencing of key points; good editing; good script (if O.M. didn't actually deliver this as a stream-of-conscious-thought); good tempo and expression of emotion.

More of this really tasty work, thanks! 🙂👍