The First Sub-£20k FK2 Honda Civic Type Rs Have Arrived
Earlier this week, Honda UK showed it mischievous side by turning an FK8 Civic Type R into a pickup truck. The Type R is the perfect base for a mad conversion like that, simply because it’s unashamedly a bit of a yob.
The trouble is, that weapons-grade uncouthness doesn’t come cheap: the GT version - the one you want - is £33,525, over £5000 more than the Hyundai i30 N. But for outright cash buyers (if any are left out there), we have an option C for you: the FK2 Type R.
Granted, the FK8 represented a sizeable leap from its predecessor, but the FK2 is still an incredible piece of kit. With 306bhp from its 2.0-litre turbocharged inline-four it’s damn near as powerful, and it certainly doesn’t feel noticeably less powerful.
It has a less sophisticated torsion beam rear suspension setup (the more recent car has a full- independent arrangement), but that doesn’t stop it being a corner-hungry monster. Thanks to a mechanical limited-slip differential and a clever front suspension setup it does an amazing job of managing all that power, giving the kind of traction that simply wasn’t possible in front-wheel drive cars a few years ago.
Downsides? Well, it’s not exactly the smoothest-riding car, and that’s before you engage the brutally hard ‘+R’ mode, which we’ve always found unusable away from the track. The infotainment system isn’t brilliant, the trip computer fiddly, and then there’s the looks to consider. If we were being diplomatic we’d dub the Type R’s function-led aesthetics as ‘divisive’. If we were being less diplomatic, we might allude to it looking like it’s crashed backwards into a pile of cheap eBay-purchased car mods.
But if you can live with the looks, or even dig them (we won’t judge…much), this is one of the finest hot hatches money can buy. Plus the FK2 has been around long enough for the values to drop to a much more palatable level.
Prices of tidy-looking examples have now dropped below the £20,000 mark. This one for instance is £19,990, and while it may have been fairly well used in its short time on Planet Earth with 42,503 showing on the clock, it looks like a safe bet.
Tempted?
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Doesn’t help the Suzuki Swift Sport’s case that
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Looks ‘exciting’ is a very polite way of putting it :-)
Let’s get an F for the Suzuki Swift Sport
But it’s ugly af… even the new one looks better
That side profile with sloping bonnet makes it look like a shoe
I would totally get a better looking, more usable although less powerful used Golf GTI
And if you want a proper driver’s hot hatch, for 20k you can get a Megane RS with less miles
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201801202924875
What makes the golf more usable? Its less practical than an FK2 and plenty less capable.
I’ll take a sub 5k EP3
Good luck on insurance
The front looks great, the interior looks really nice, and the rest of the car’s styling I absolutely hate. Wheels look tiny, tyres are so low profile they look like they are painted onto the rims, the body looks too big and bulky and all the aero, functional or otherwise, looks like a chav’s dream.
My inner honda fanboi is reaching climax rn…😁
This, or 2 EK9s?
2 EK9s. They look better than this over-styled thing
The EK9 and the EP3 are the better choices for way less.
Having driven an EP3 and an FK2 back to back, it really isnt the better choice.
Good lord those are still expensive in Europe