While our European friends are waiting for the next-generation Honda Civic Type-R to arrive next summer, one lucky spotter discovered a pre-production model tackling the switchbacks of Eastern Europe not too long ago.
Carscoops reports a friend of theirs sent in two photos of the 2015 Type-R as it was shooting a promo in Rijeka, Croatia, located two hours to the southwest from the nation’s capital, Zagreb.
This particular Type-R — later spotted on a trailer in Slovenia — lacks the concept version’s massive front wheel arches and matching set of front and rear air ducts — as seen at the 2014 Geneva Auto Show — yet maintains the large rear spoiler/LED tail lamp combo.
The Type-R will receive power from a 2-liter VTEC turbo-four punching out 280 horsepower through the front wheels when it begins production next year.
Want to revive Acura’s flagging fortunes?
Improve the interior a little and sell this as an Integra/RSX.
Except everyone will complain it’s a hot rod Civic for too much money and then utter the old “badge whore” meme.
Which isn’t really different from the TSX, or the original RSX (which was a Honda Integra, which wasn’t all that different from a contemporary Civic).
And really, how much worse is Acura doing now?
I don’t think so. The 30-40K segment this thing is fighting in is intense. Who would buy this, when for the same money they could have a 228i, STi, Mustang GT, Golf R, etc. If I’m dropping ~40 large for a performance car it can’t be FWD.
The original Integra/RSX-S wasn’t a $40K car. Not even close.
That was part of it’s appeal: the ’05 RSX-S was $24K, and the base and premium trims were even less. Adjusted for inflation and putting a bit above the Civic Si (or around the ILX) would push that to $27-30K.
The point of the RSX was that it was a sporty car that was pretty nice inside and wasn’t at all expensive to own, and the resale was good enough that the lease deals were easy for young professionals to swallow, and trade up they would, to a TSX, TL or MDX when the lease was up and they had settled down a little.
Acura lost the plot when they decided to make their entry-level car a small crossover, and expected people to buy Civic Si’s instead. The RSX was a good gateway drug, and for some reason (probably arrogance, knowing Honda) they’re taking only half-measures toward fleshing out the lower end of Acura’s lineup, all while BMW et al eat their lunch.
Fair disclosure: I really liked the Integra and RSX, so I may be biased here, but it’s worth noting that Acura’s collapse pretty much coincided with the RSX’s demise.
I had one of those little devils! An ’06 Type-S. What a car. Edgy, road hard, and was too noisy to use a cell phone (Bluetooth? LOL!) but man was it fun! And it got like 27 MPG too.
Of course, everything I just mentioned above is either a negative or unimportant to a typical U.S. car buyer. They’d sell about 5 RSX Type-S’s today. I think Acura is doing just fine with 2 bloated CUVs and 3 boring sedans. To the extent they’re going to try to turn around any struggles, they’ll probably beef up the CUV side and get a few more entries there.
That assessment is most likely depressingly accurate. While all of us old Honda fanboys and general car enthusiasts are pining for the return of the Integra, Acura managers are porbably looking at market data and planning an HR-V-based, alphanumeric-named, ultra-quotidian CUV for 2016.
Sigh. At least there’ll always be the used market.
Heck, I’m still driving and love my ’02 Type-S, bought new in the fall of ’01. Your description fits it to a T. But for all its flaws, the fact that it’s still reliably on the road with only basic maintenance and no major breakdowns speaks volumes as far as I’m concerned.
Comments ‘re the RSX not fitting the Acura lux image are spot on. I considered this a good thing. The car was a bouncy noisy little firecracker. It didn’t even have a touch screen. OMG!! Going from that to a TSX would be roughly akin to going from a Kawasaki Ninja 600R to a Cadillac Escalade.
Anyway off my horse and to point. As a former owner of the aforesaid RSX Type-S and current owner of a MK VI GTI, yes I’d buy a 280 HP Civic Si, IF it was fun to drive. You can make a fast car not fun to drive (ahem Accord and Camry V-6). Yea the wing’s stupid but I doubt that’ll be on the production version.
If the RSX was supposed to rope in buyers to move up, it was not a good choice. For starters, compared to other entry level luxury cars it was pretty rough and unrefined, and its tiny back seat limited its usability and appeal. Not to mention, what was there for RSX owners to upgrade into? Closest thing was a TL 6 speed, which is still a very, very, very different car.
The ILX is a much better at distilling Acura’s essence into an afforable pint size package. Whether that essence is what anyone wants is another topic entirely…
You’re thinking like a car enthusiast, not a marketer/product planner. The idea is a 20-something would buy an RSX while he/she was still young and interested in sporty cars, and then as he/she grew up and wanted/needed to move into a bigger, quieter, comfier sedan or SUV, he/she would buy the same brand that he/she already owned, Acura. It worked to some extent, I know at least two chicks who drove RSXs in/after college and now one has a TSX and one has an RDX.
Sir You are forgetting that there are hordes of Honda Fan Boyz. Honda could crap out a turd, put the Honda H on it and the Fan Boyz would line up around the block to pay premium $$ for it. One only needs to look the repackaged CRV and Odyssey, not much change in engineering from the previous models, but they are Honda’s and that is all that matters to some. An example from Toyota is the Corolla. Why would anyone buy a Corolla other than it comes with the name Toyota on it.
Nah, there’s three types of Honda fanbois:
-There’s the beige people, who just want a reliable box and buy Accords, Civics, CRVs and Odysseys by the bushel, and they wouldn’t touch this gauche thing
-There’s the loyalists to the past models such as the NSX, S2000, Integra/ITR, RSX, and Prelude, and they’re (we’re, if I’m honest) convinced nothing Honda builds today can beat the good old days, so they won’t touch this thing
-There’s the VTAK true believers who like stickers and bodykits and Altezzas and truly believe they and their CAI-equipped ’92 hatch have a chance against that new Coyote Mustang, and until Dominos starts paying $75/hr they can’t afford to touch this thing.
I can’t see anyone actually buying a Civic that looks like that unless on a dare or lost bet or something.
Honda tried, but after VTEC kicked in, Yo!, the Acura badges kept falling off.
The Euro-Civic is based on the Fit/Jazz platform. Would you pay TLX money for that car? Doubt it. (Don’t forget it’s built in England).
Just put the powertrain in a special edition of the FG4 and forget about the rest! (As Acura does not have a vehicle, except maybe for the ILX to put the powertrain in)
And, for the record, the car you see is NOT a real CTR. It’s a regular Euro-Civic with some “R” outside trim pieces, including the spoiler assembly and false air inlets (decals) on the hood. (It’s been dressed that way for a promotional video)
Good lord it’s hideous. Kill it with fire!
That rear end (hopefully) will never make production. It’s like some horrible home made job with that tube lighting people use in dorms.
That was my thought as well. My ’96 Eclipse GS-T had a HUGE factory wing but this Civic even trumps that! It looks like a tuner car from a video game and not in good WRX / EVO kind of way.
The wing is silly, but the white one on the trailer doesn’t look bad.
It looks dead-up like the combinations of body kits + outrageous spoilers available to the Volkswagen GTI in Need for Speed Most Wanted, the original 2006 version. My first impression was real life imitating art… Hard to believe something so incredibly outrageous was actually created. You have to applaud Honda for their balls in spending the capital to turn that to real sheet metal.
Well it needs that wing to push the rear wheels down so all that blazing horsepower gets to the ground.
;-)
* Yes – I know the damn thing is FWD, it’s called sarcasm
The last time I talked to a guy with a “modified” Civic, he actually believed that FWD gave him more traction over RWD.
I hear VTEC stickers add 10 HP
I’ve heard NOS stickers add almost 65hp. 63.82 to be exact.
Why are they pursuing such a niche vehicle aimed at kids who can’t buy a new car? Judging by its appearance I’m putting it down to their sense of humor.
Sense of humor? I think you have mistaken Honda for Acura. Or am I thinking “self-deprecation?”
Kids? There are enough* 25-35 guys with decent jobs to buy one of these to have fun with before the wife and kids come along and he has to move up to an Accord or a Pilot.
* to move 5k or 10k units a year.
A Civic Si priced below 25k might move in those numbers, yes. But for every $1k over that you’d probably lose about 2k buyers though. Hopefully the 280 HP mill isn’t one of the things they water down to cut the price to sub-25k. We’ll see!
What else does Honda offer that resembles a halo car? The NSX is still vaporware, and the rest of the line is pretty yawn-inducing. Maybe this obscene wing will excite some blokes enough to get them past the dealer’s doorstep.
“What else does Honda offer that resembles a halo car?”
How many buyers of Civics, Accords, CR-Vs and Odysseys do you suppose even know what a halo car is? Let alone an NSX, real or vapor.
Only car guy narcosis can magnify the importance of halo cars beyond their reality as irrelevant freaks of excess.
Ask GM how the Corvette helped them move Cavaliers and Malibus at high-margin leading them to unprecedented profitability.
Oh, right…
Halo cars don’t really help much, unless you’d consider a real halo car as personifying the brand. As such, Honda’s halo car is the Accord. Toyota’s is the Prius, or possibly the Camry.
Whereas the Corvette is really more of a Hail Mary Car, especially pre-bankruptcy
Yes, my definition of a halo car would be whatever dominates its mainstream segment. So Accord, Camry, Prius and F-150 all have had halos.
Does it come stock with a Puerto Rican flag hanging from the rearview and a shocker sticker in the rear window?
280fwhp? they must have found a way to incorporate some sort of hybrid drive that runs on the hot air generated from Honda-tech.com and other related forums.
i spy other indications of a collaboration with internet fanboys in some of the design aspects. if Honda knows its markets the US-spec version will come with a roofrack and stickerbombed lip spoiler as standard.
As the brother of one of those fanbois, there are probably thousands of older turbo’d and supercharged 1.6 liter Civics running with much more than 280 whp out there.
In some cases almost triple that, on a more or less road legal ’92 hacthback here in Norway even. (ok, that one guy does rebuild the engine every two years, and it’s not really a daily driver that much anymore)
I think all the new euro Civics look awesome (and have since 2007)
But sales numbers here tell me I probably don’t share that opinion with as many people as Honda would like….
A road-worthy Civic running 800 hp? Bollocks. On what engine, with what mystery fuel, on whose broken dynometer?
Sandra’s Bollocks!
Maybe they just put the engine from a TriFecta Encore into a Civic. Boom. 800.
Integra B18 block, with enough money in it to build a nice 1000 hp smallblock…, on ‘normal’ E85 fuel, only serious dyno operators have dynos that can handle that power…
Not quite 800, but 700 horsepower Civics used to be ‘everywhere’ in magazines and race tracks not many yers ago (and that was with mostly just resleeved 1.6 and 1.8 B-series engines, they are even more extreme now with the K24’s)
And there quite a few seriously nice 300-600 hp streetdriven in showroom quality aroud still.
A 280 whp turbos Civic would be a minimum to make the extra plumbing worth the effort, as the old B16’s can get close to 200whp even in NA form.
Those taillights are atrocious.
In all seriousness, Honduh needs to take a lesson from Ford. For decades, Ford had different products in Europe: better products, actually. And in the last several years, Ford decided to start selling one product globally. The Focus displaced the Toyolla as the best-selling car in the world. And the Fusion/Mondeo is a dang good car, too.
Honduh, are you listening? People want your better European offerings, not the boring, beige, milquetoast appliances you sell over here.
Not to mention the glare they would cause while trying to look out the back at night.
For some crazy, inane, insane reason, I ACTUALLY LIKE THAT DISGUSTING APPEARANCE. What’s wrong with me? Am I losing it in my old age? I’m closer to 30 than 20 now. QUICK, SOMEONE SLAP ME.
The more you stare at that hideous rear end, the more you want to stare at it. It hurts so good. So good.
Coming soon to a Shutokou Battle video game screen near you.
I faintly remember an article here at TTAC a few months back in which (I believe) Jack Baruth wrote something to the effect of “As long as European buyers choose to pretend the Honda Civic hatchback doesn’t exist, the Golf will continue to sell very well”.
Well. After looking at pictures of this thing, you might now realise exactly WHY European buyers choose to ignore the Civic.
Honda needs to hire some good designers, not people drawing Mangas.
EDIT: And no, the thing doesn’t really look better without the wing, sadly.
> Honda needs to hire some good designers, not people drawing Mangas.
It’s not aimed at the Gold, it’s for the Focus ST crowd. (See the Top gear review on that one “Weatherspoons, Heat Magazine and chlamydia.”) The Type-R actually has some brand equity over there.
The Focus ST doesn’t look like the product of an awkward one-night stand between the base model and a bat.
As dull as the American Civic is, for once I’m glad we don’t get to have the forbidden fruit available in Europe.
Yeah, the wing is nuts. So is the STI’s. But with so many cars these days trending towards being boring conformobiles with auto transmissions (or fake manuals), I’m not going to feed the monster and criticize an actual enthusiast car with MT. In my area it seems like everyone drives a bland indistinguishable AT AudiBMWMerc in a non-color. A big part of me would love to get a crazy Wingmobile. And, have you ever gone into a tool rental place and noticed that everything they have (and have to pay to maintain and repair) has a Honda engine? So if the wing is attached to a car made by perhaps the best engine-maker in the world….
When will they start offering the standard, shattered body kit and garbage can sized fart pipe or whatever they’re called?
Put this engine in a 4wd CR-V. Now. Then market it.
Dual spoiler would look perfect on Murilee’s Merkur4 xrTi
That wing is really ridiculous. Even by sillywing standards. But who cares anyway. This Type R will be just another turbo appliance the Burgerking crowd anyway.
Does anyone at Honda remember when Civics were just cheap, simple economy hatchbacks?
I can already tell that underneath all the fakery that the new Civic will be less CRX and more Dodge Neon.
The Red Baron called. He wants his Fokker back.
Can I be Snoopy and Chase the Red Baron is a yellow Focus RS?
Croatia is not part of ‘Eastern Europe’. Croatia was historically part of the now defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire, so Central Europe. After WWI there was an attempt made to force Croatia into Eastern Europe as part of the now defunct Yugoslavia. Today it’s part of the still alive…for now…EU.
Which is the new Austro-Hungarian empire.
Meh… when I was a kid the adults just called any European who moved into the neighborhood a “DP”.
thats one step away from airtight!
Wow – none of the usual suspects bemoaning that now that Honda has gone over to the dark (2.0L turbo four) side, the world will end?
Awesome spoiler – I think VW has nothing to worry about.
Cool to see pics of cars in Europe. In the background I see a Renault Twingo and a Citroen Picasso and a C3. All of which interest me more than the Honda.
You *would* find the only value in this goofy article :-)
Every dark cloud has a silver lining, :)
Needs octa-exhaust. Quad clearly isn’t enough for this application.
New Honda ad: “Our exhaust goes to eleven”
I don’t know…
I look at that glowing ass-ring and my mind cries out to see a cursive neon “Blatz” inside it.
Blatz is the finest.
They should put this engine into ‘handsomer’ 2-door CRZ and create proper ‘modern CRX’ .. (they should be interested in ‘boosting $ales numbers’ , right .. ?!? ..)
Now that’s a flamboyant wing! Look at me I’m fast!