WILD TYPE

IT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO BE A TOUGH JOB to follow the FK8 Honda Civic Type R. A serial group-test winner, the FK8 didn’t just scrape a few victories but repeatedly realigned our expectations of what a hot hatchback could be. In fact it felt less like a hot hatch in a typical sense, more like a brilliantly engineered sports car that just happened to be frontwheel drive – and for us there was no higher compliment. So it was encouraging news when Honda took the covers off its latest Civic Type R and suggested very clearly that the new FL5 will carry on in the same direction as its predecessor. It will be, in Honda’s words, its ‘FF Sports Car 2.0’.

First the basics. As with the FK8, the standard Civic hatchback