Are You Ready For The Honda Civic Type-Chav?

And here we see the Type-R owner in their modest car

If you have already had a sniff around one or two of my previous posts, it probably won't take you long to work out that I have a monumental soft, squidgy spot in my heart for Honda's 'Type-R' division. Go on, then. Abuse me all you want. 'F*ck da haterz'.

And there is a reason for typing that in a chavvy way. If you don't know what a chav is, click here. Or here. Or here, even. Now you're wised up of just what disgusting creatures you are, I can now tell you that Type-R drivers are often stereotyped as being chavs; cocky, smelly little boys who think their Civic can outpace that Ferrari when "Vtec kicks in, yo".


And it is this reason alone - give or take - why the Type-R is internationally hated. Naturally, because I'm a fan of the division and not a chav last time I checked, I try to defend Type-R to the hills, but it is no use. Guys on the internet (who often claim on owning classic muscle cars, because, you know, every lower class American owns a '68 Fastback these days!) will always poke at the drivers and the torque.

America's school run

Ah, yes. The torque. It was always a direct target for them; the 2003 Civic Type-R came packed with 200bhp, but only 155lb/ft of torque. That means it was quite easy to be overtaken by a 1.6L diesel hatchback if you were in the wrong gear. Of course, I say "baloney!"; less torque means you have to use those glorious vtec revs more, which means you will get a successful eargasm every time you pull away from the junction. 9000rpm from a 2.0L? Don't mind if I do.

Don't even try and argue with that rev range

But my unnatural enthusiasm obviously wasn't enough, because around four years ago, Honda announced that the Type-R range was dead. Putting your sensible cap on showed why; having N/A engines that revved to insane amounts was definitely not the way forward in a world where we have cars powered by the same thing that powers your mobile phone. The regulations had caught up, and eaten Type-R in one delicious bite.

One of the very last of the breed

But, wait! Type-R is back! Yay! The upcoming Civic Type-R is going to be turbocharged! Nooo!

When I first heard they were making a miraculous recovery about a year ago, I was very excited. I presumed they had managed to make their N/A screamers eligible. But oh how wrong I was. The new Civic will be turbo'd, be 5 doors only, and it'll look absolutely ghastly.

*Tries to swallow vomit back down*

Look at it!! It's as if Honda are scared the new sensible stuff will scare the hardcore fans away, so to please them, they completely went wild on the styling. But it doesn't work; it looks like a fat hatch that's been poorly 'decorated' by a 17-year-old, wait for it, chav. So they got that bit right then. Honda really need to learn the concept of 'subtle', or they can just look at the current Fiesta ST.

The new car is meant to carry 300bhp (hello, turbo lag!) with it, and will be setting its eyes on the Nurburgring lap record for FWD cars. So hopefully, it'll still drive like a peach.

But I'll keep to a slower S2000, thanks. 9000rpm: your argument is invalid.