The New Honda Civic Type R BTCC Car Looks Predictably Mean
The current Honda Civic Type R is hardly a car that’s wanting in the visual aggression department, is it? But in case you’re curious as to how the ‘FK8’-generation car would look like after some pesky Ford Focus RS spilt its pint, now you have your answer.
The car you see here is Honda’s new British Touring Car Championship challenger, replacing the previous-gen ‘FK2’ Type R racer that was retired at the end of the 2017 season. And it looks particularly scary.
The Team Dynamics-run car will be tested from this week onwards at Parcmotor Castelloli in Spain, before making its racing debut at Brands Hatch on 7 April. In the team will be triple BTCC champion Matt Neal, plus two time Carrera Cup GB champion and BTCC newbie Dan Cammish.
No technical details have been given by Honda, but these aren’t hard to work out given that it will need to comply with Next Generation Touring Car regulations. That means a 2.0-litre engine producing over 350bhp, a six-speed sequential gearbox from Xtrac, a retention of the base car’s front-wheel drive layout, and front and rear subframes made by RML.
It’s worth pointing out though that this isn’t the only racing version of the current Civic Type R. A TCR-spec version was revealed last year, which if anything looks even meaner…
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
I can feel the VTEC
This is one mean Civic
That is insane… i love it
In the road version the fake air enters the fake engine through the fake air intakes then back out the fake exhaust.
But now they have made it all real
somewhat the styling features were too much?
Camber
The only civic I like… that’s amazing!
They’ve somehow bettered the road version…
Because they got rid of the ridiculously huge fake vents in the front and the stupid triple exhaust pipe.
That’s because the road model looks like a touring car, but without the racing wheels and lower stance
Expected more wide arches
BTCC cars are relatively restrained, which I like.
Where did Gordon Shedden go?
to some TCR championship of some sort.
WTCR. Spiritual successor to WTCC. I hope its more exciting to watch…
Funny how the road car’s air intakes are so fake and useless that for the track car they just covered over them to improve aerodynamics.
Funny it Looks better than the road version.
i spent a good minute staring at the front end wondering “i don’t know how it looks so much better than the road going version that it’s based upon”.. i guess it just does.