The Tokyo Auto Salon is essentially Japan’s SEMA show, a conference showing off the latest and greatest in the automotive aftermarket. It’s enough of a landmark event that major automakers get in on it, and Honda may have been the surprise of the year. It wheeled out a fully camouflaged prototype called the Civic Type R HRC Concept. What does HRC stand for? Honda Racing Corporation. Details on this spicier Type R were scarce at the turn of the year, but Honda’s now gone and released a video showing a little bit more about how the sausage is made.
The existing Honda Civic Type R is already one of the quickest front-wheel-drive cars on sale. We’re talking 315 horsepower, adaptive dampers, a close-ratio six-speed manual transaxle with a helical diff, a functional wing … everything needed to run with the front of the front-wheel-drive performance car pack. However, it’s no longer the king. Last month, the Volkswagen Golf GTI Edition 50 claimed the Civic Type R’s title of the fastest front-wheel-drive car around the Nürburgring Nordschleife, so it’s safe to say that Honda’s timed development of the Civic Type R HRC well. Granted, the marque’s calling the Type R HRC a concept for now, but Honda has a long history of barely-disguised production cars being shown off as concept cars.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Honda built and tested several Civic Type R HRC prototypes in this video, and some of them don’t have nearly the same level of camouflage as the Tokyo Auto Salon show car. This means we get a better look at the changes, and some of what we can spot is significant.
While it’s all wrapped up in camouflage, even this dazzling pattern can’t hide the wild aerodynamic elements on the front fenders. The current Civic Type R won some praise for dialing back its visual boldness over the previous model, but not everyone’s a fan of visual restraint. Also, check out the additional sculpting on the front bumper. Now those are some winglets.
Complementing the heavily revised front clip, this thing features a visibly different rear wing than the standard model, with traditional end plates instead of the regular Civic Type R’s wing’s tapered design. This should increase efficiency by keeping flow further separated over the high-pressure and low-pressure sides of the wing, and it just looks proper.
While power changes aren’t confirmed, a close-up of an HRC-branded intercooler suggests that there’s something going on under the hood of this next-level Civic Type R. At minimum, a larger intercooler should help prevent heat soak on track, but anyone who’s played with turbocharged cars before knows that greater intake air cooling capability can usually handle more boost than standard.
Around back, Honda treated viewers to a close-up of a triple-tipped Akrapovič exhaust system. Given how Akrapovič is known for building lovely-sounding things out of titanium, don’t be surprised if this setup serves up measurable weight reduction while uncorking that turbocharged inline-four’s growl.
Perhaps most curiosity-piquing is this tidbit of dialogue in the promo video: “It feels racier. Response is quicker. The whole car feels more rigid. It’s way better.” Not only does this suggest real powertrain tweaks, it also seems to hint at revisions under the skin. They could be suspension modifications, additional bracing, or perhaps a combination of the two. We won’t know until Honda takes the wrap off for real.
Mind you, there is one wildcard item here: The Civic Type R HRC might not be a turnkey car as such. Going by Honda’s Tokyo Auto Salon teaser, it’s likely at least some of these tweaks will be available as standalone parts for existing Civic Type Rs, potentially with a whole package being available in the same vein as Manthey Racing’s Porsche packages. Those still count for Nürburgring times, so maybe it’s indeed the move. Either way, expect to learn a whole lot more later this year.
Top graphic image: YouTube/Honda
Hot Hatchback is my favorite segment, but this does nothing for me. This feels like it defeats the ethos of the hot hatch which is cheap, practical fun. I’m getting “This is our FWD GT3 RS” and it leaves me cold. I don’t need the stickiest rubber and racing brakes, just something with a bit more than the standard civic.
I’d love a hot Civic hatch with a 2.0T and a stick for $5000 more than the top trim Civic but this isn’t going to be that. It’s going to be at least $20k-$30k more and that’s honestly just not compelling for a warmed over compact hatchback.
I think in its base guise or as the Integra Type S it’s still a very appealing, if expensive, car…but even before these inevitably get slammed with markups they’re going to cost as much as some serious rear wheel drive competition. You’d have to really, really like Honda to pick a FWD hot hatch over a CT4V BW, IS500, M340i, etc.
I really like the new Type R, but I do think it looks too subtle and restrained. It needs some modifications like this to stand out a bit more. As it is now it just looks too much like the standard hatchback, which is a great looking car but doesn’t match the Type R.
Cool! I can’t wait for it to retail for $60,000, for Honda dealerships to then charge $80,000 for it, and for JDM bros to line up around the block to get into bidding wars to see who gets to finance it on 84 month loans.
…if you want to be able to brag that MY TYPE R IS BEST TYPE R you’re way better off just buying a stock one and modding it yourself. The aftermarket for these cars is friggin YUGE and IMHO doing your own mods fits the ethos of this car way better than paying a huge ADM for a factory tuned one.
The price on these is already killer. And with every new Type R or Golf R or special edition GTI or whatever gets announced, all I can think is that Subaru would be crushing it with either (or both) a bit more power in this generation of WRX or a $40k starting STi.
(not saying the current WRX doesn’t have enough power, just that they have failed to generate excitement by keeping the power levels stagnant and adding all that cladding)
This is a solid take – I think the Type R swung a little too far to restraint when going from 10th to 11th gen and needs some aggressive bits like shown here. I appreciate the “factory” attempt at changing that, but I agree that modding your own fits the car.
I haven’t looked at the aftermarket options (why would I, I don’t own one lol) but if they have stuff that looks more aggressive while still looking factory that would be a great option. My worry would be how often tack-on aftermarket stuff looks like tack-on aftermarket stuff.