Better in every way? The BEST things about the 2023 Honda Civic Type R, and why the Volkswagen Golf R, Subaru WRX and Hyundai i30 N should be worried

Type R is back, baby! Well, almost – we’ve still got about half a year before the new-gen Honda Civic Type R lands in Australia, but there’s plenty of things to get excited about as its local launch date draws closer.

As the latest in a long line of of hot hatches to wear the Type R badge, Honda's latest hero has a lot to live up to, but it seems like the Japanese marque has gone all out.

Should you hold off on putting an order in for a Volkswagen Golf GTI, Hyundai i30 N or Subaru WRX and save your dollars for Honda’s hero instead? Here are the highlights of Honda’s newest hardcore hot hatch to help you decide.

Read More About Honda Civic

Is the 2023 Honda Civic Type R the ultimate hot hatch? Volkswagen Golf R, Hyundai i30 N and Mercedes-AMG A45 rival detailed but how much will it cost? Honda committed to Civic, despite sales dive, with hybrid coming in 2022 and Type R hot hatch in 2023 Best hatchbacks arriving in 2022

Bodywork

The previous-generation FK8 Civic Type R’s Gundam-inspired bodykit was polarizing to say the least. Its exterior was festooned with sharp angles, fussy details and boxy protuberances, and while some declared a profound love of the Transformers-esque styling, others weren’t quite as prepared to put something so extroverted in their driveway. 

For the new FL5 Type R, Honda has sanded off the edges and smoothed out the transitions, cleaning up the design considerably to give the new Red H hero a more universal appeal. The bonnet vent and ironing-board rear wing are visually lairy while the prominent intercooler and triple-exit exhaust are also obvious clues about this car’s performance intent, but on the whole this is a far more mature-looking Type R than its predecessor.

Girth

Besides wholesale changes to the design language, the new Type R’s exterior is also dramatically wider than the cooking-grade Civic hatch that it’s based upon. 

But while the old Type R achieved a similar increase in track width by sticking on chunky fender flares to the rear wheel arches, Honda went the extra mile for its replacement by producing unique sheetmetal stampings for the quarter panels and rear doors that build that extra width into the bodyshell itself.

The front quarter panels are a bolt-on part that are easy to refashion for a wider front suspension, but doing the same trick at the back is a costly exercise. Honda thought it was worth the expense, and with the added thickness around new Type R’s haunches giving it a purposeful stance – without the visual ugliness of grafted-on fender flares – we think it was definitely money well spent.

More power

While initial speculation had the sixth-generation Civic Type R gaining everything from a hybrid powertrain to all-wheel drive and a fast-shifting automatic transmission, Honda will instead stick with the tried-but-true 2.0-litre turbo engine, six-speed manual transmission and front-drive driveline of the fifth-gen car. According to the grapevine, this will likely be the last ‘pure’ Civic Type R with FWD, a manual trans, and no electrification.

However the engineers have turned up the wick on that hardware, extracting 243kW and 420Nm according to a Japanese-market brochure that was reportedly sent to a customer by mistake. Compared to the 228kW and 400Nm offered previously, that’s a jump of 15kW and 20Nm – enough to give you a noticeably harder shove in the back. However, one bit of info that will be crucial to the car’s performance has yet to be revealed: its weight. Will the new car better the old car’s 164.1kW-per-tonne power to weight ratio? 

Sensible shoes

The outgoing Civic Type R rolled on 20-inch alloys, but the new one will be equipped with 19-inchers instead. Wait, isn’t that a downgrade? Not for a performance car, it isn’t.

While 20s might look cool, they come with compromises to ride quality, acceleration, braking and handling, with lower-profile tyres providing less compliance over rough ground and the increased rotational mass of a larger wheel/tyre package requiring more power to accelerate or decelerate, the general rule is that a smaller wheel provides better performance than a bigger one – provided it can physically fit over the brake package, that is. 

Hence why the 2023 Civic Type R will be equipped with 19-inch wheels. Another change is the upsizing of the tyres to 265-section rubber, rather than the 245mm-wide hoops that were fitted to the fifth-gen FK8 Civic Type R. Wider tyres do add a bit more rotational mass back in, but with more rubber in contact with the ground there’s more grip to be exploited – something which could see a dramatic drop in the Type R’s zero-to-hundred time. 

The only confirmed tyre compound is the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S – a top tier sports car tyre that should perform even better than the previous car’s Continental ContiSportContact 6s – though what we wind up with in the Australian market has yet to be announced.

It’s FAST

In March this year, a camouflaged Type R prototype clinched the front-wheel drive record at Japan’s famous Suzuka Circuit – a track renowned for ultra-fast sweeping corners that challenge not just regular performance cars, but front-drivers in particular. 

The new Type R achieved a fastest lap time of 2:23.12. Considering Japan’s own racing legend Keiichi Tsuchiya was only able to record a 2:25.26 in a FERRARI F40, this should give you some critical context about the new Type R’s performance potential.

Made in Japan

For some, there’s no greater hallmark of quality than a ‘Made In Japan’ label. The new car will be manufactured in Japan, signaling a big shift in sourcing for the Civic Type R which has been built in the United Kingdom for the past four generations (the original EK9 and Japan-only third-gen FD2 sedan being the only exceptions).