• New Type R has been optimised, but costs £12k more than old one
• Mk11 Civic is likely to be last hurrah for pure-petrol hot hatchback
LET’S start with the elephant in the room – the new Honda Civic Type R costs £46,995. While it gets more kit than the base-spec version of its predecessor, that’s still more than a £12,000 hike compared with the price of the entry-level model when it went off sale. Opt for the £3,265 Carbon Pack, the £1,110 Illumination Pack and a paint job (there’s only one standard colour available) at £650, and the new Civic Type R is a £52,020 car.
But while this puts it very much at the premium end of the hot-hatchback market, rivalling four-wheel-drive, circa-400bhp monsters such as the Mercedes-AMG A 45 S and the Audi RS 3, the Type R could still be worth every last penny of that significant price tag, despite only offering a small improvement
