At 310 horsepower, the Honda Civic Type R represents the first turbocharged performance vehicle from Honda, and the big H is aiming for the fastest front-wheel drive time around the Nurburgring.

Here it is, the first turbo Type-R.

As is standard operating procedure for Honda, the Civic Type-R has been revealed, nominally labeled a “concept”, even though the production car will look nearly identical.

Back in September, I wrote a piece lamenting the death of Honda’s high-perofrmance hallmark, the twin-cam VTEC 4-cylinder engine. It was just the sort of article many of you are fed up with: a lengthy piece filled with flowery prose and Honda fanboy-ism sprinkled with a condescending explanation of the auto industry’s inner workings. Miraculously, it was fairly well-received. But I’ve had a change of heart.

It is a sound that is familiar to anyone of my generation, the manic buzzsaw howl of a Honda 4-cylinder. Unfairly tarnished in the minds of the public by legions of single-cam D-Series breathing through a potmetal Pep Boys muffler, the Honda 4-cylinder produced a truly moving tune in its highest iterations, the twin cam VTEC B-Series models, as they growled their way to stratospheric redlines. That era is officially over.