Small print, don’t you just hate it? Yesterday Honda announced that the Civic Type R had just set a new record for front-wheel drive production cars at the Nurburgring, but it turns out that news comes with some big asterisks.
First, the facts. The new FL5 Civic Type R ripped through the ’Ring’s 150+ corners in 7 min 44.881 seconds, taking half a second out of the 7 min 45.389 second time set by the Renault Megane RS Trophy-R in 2019. The FL5’s time was slower than the record set by its FK8 predecessor in 2017, but the FL5 was running the newer, longer, 12.9-mile (20.8 km) course, whereas the FK8 was timed on the older 12.8-mile (20.6 km) configuration of the track.
But we’ve discovered that the record-setting Civic isn’t the same as the 2023 Civic Type R you can buy at your local Honda dealership. Most obviously, if you’re reading this in the U.S., you’ll have guessed that the record was set with a European-spec car whose KA 2.0-liter engine is rated at 325 hp (330 PS) whereas the North American version of the same car claims 315 hp (319 PS). But you Euro-readers needn’t start coming over all smug, because there’s more, or maybe we should say less.
Related: The 2023 Honda Civic Type R Is The Fastest FWD Car On The Nurburgring
Tell Me About The 2023 Civic Type R ‘S Grade’
The record was set with a special lightweight version of the hot Civic called the Type R S grade or Type R S, a fact that wasn’t referenced at all in the North American media release and received only a passing mention in Honda Europe’s, which said only that model was a special grade only offered in LHD European markets. But we’ve been able to contact Honda Europe and find out what makes it special.
Essentially, it’s a regular Type R with a ton of equipment taken out, a bit like the old FK8 Type R LE revealed in 2020, but minus the yellow paint. It retains the 9-inch infotainment screen but loses the sat nav hardware and comes without air conditioning, the rear tonneau cover, parking sensors and cargo net hooks. Honda has also ditched the auto-dimming function for the rear view mirror, dropped the sun visor vanity illumination, and the door mirrors are old fashioned manual items with no electrical adjustment or heating function.
We’re still waiting to see if we can uncover how much weight this crash diet saves but as a guide the LE weighed 104 lbs (47 kg) less than a regular Type R, though it did have the help of some special forged alloy wheels. As for the engine and suspension, both are unchanged.
About Those Special Michelin Tires
The other asterisk concerns the tires, which are not the same black circles your standard Type R leaves the showroom wearing. Stock, the R rolls on 265/30 ZR19 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S rubber, but the record car was shod with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect boots. You’re probably familiar with the semi-slick Cup 2 tires from track-ready cars like the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, and the Connect suffix in this case signifies an updated version that can be used with Michelin Track Connect sensors to send real-time data to a smartphone app.
Michelin launched the Connect in 2020 and they’re fully road legal, but the rub here is that if you want them for your Civic Type R in Europe where the record was set, you can’t get them from Honda, you have to buy them direct from Michelin. They are available to order from Honda dealers in Asia and the U.S., however, so Honda is able to claim that they’re ‘production’ tires.
We’re still waiting to hear if the U.S. will get any of these lightweight S models, but our gut feel is that North America, like the U.K., will miss out. Let us know if you think it’s fair that mainland Europe could be keeping potentially the best Type R to itself.
