Honda Civic Type R - long-term review

Is there anything I don’t like about the Civic Type R? Well, if you store a water bottle in the cup holders on the centre console it hampers your gearshifts. Annoying but not heinously so. Then there’s the fact you can’t turn off the speed limit warning chime if you overshoot a limit. Obviously, I never do this but I suspect it could be infuriating. In theory. 

One way to solve this issue is to travel to Europe, when the system reads the signs in kph and assumes it’s an mph limit. Luckily, I recently had to be at Spa Francorchamps and so enjoyed driving in total peace...

The Honda is gorgeously comfortable on a long journey. Yes, the ride is quite firm even in Comfort mode - something I don’t mind at all - but the all-enveloping seats are fantastically supportive and have much more cushioning than most seats that look this aggressive. Six or seven hours in the chairs is no problem at all.

Get to the roads around Spa and the Honda shines even brighter. The steering is so responsive, there’s mega stability and the Type R manages to feel fully hooked-up and eager but without lurching into hyperactivity when you just want to flow. Even a Le Mans class winner hopped in the car and after a few miles volunteered, ‘this is just great, isn’t it?’ I couldn’t agree more.