2023 Honda Civic Type R Reviews, Pricing & Specs

The new Honda Civic Type R has grown a bit. Now based on the 11th-generation Civic’s platform, it features a 2,735-millimetre wheelbase, up 35 mm from the previous model. The front and rear tracks are a bit wider, too: 27 mm and 21 mm, respectively. Those moderate increases should make the new Type R a bit more stable, but the more significant size increase comes from its unique bodywork. Flared wheel arches add 89 mm to the car’s width, so the Type R looks much wider than a conventional Civic. Ignore the unique front grille, door sills, and rear wing, and the Type R will still make an impression.

Or, conversely, don’t ignore the grille, door sills, and wing. After all, what’s the point of a Type R if we’re not going to embrace the visual display? While this model is certainly more reserved than the outgoing Type R, it still features plenty of unique styling bits to clue in onlookers as to what they’re witnessing. The front end has been revised to accept more air—which is then funneled over the car’s engine and expended out the hood scoop. The hood itself is an inch lower near the A-pillars. The rear edge of the front wheel wells hosts an air outlet to smooth airflow around the wheels, and once clear of the wheels, all that air gets shuttled down the side of the car, thanks to those unique door sills.

The rear end, however, is where you’ll find the Civic Type R’s real party. A new rear spoiler rises high over the sloping hatchback, its aluminum stanchions lifting it like industrial buttresses. Despite its prominence from the outside, the wing is nearly invisible from the car’s interior. It’s lifted to just the right height and curved at just the right angle to frame the rear glass when viewed through the Type R’s rear-view mirror.

Honda has kept the triple exhaust but made some critical changes. First, the centre pipe is now the largest in diameter (the previous generation had a smaller pipe flanked by two larger ones). It also employs a “straight-through” design to give it a richer note.

Beyond the wing and the exhaust, there’s not much visual dissonance on this new Type R. While the previous model looked angry and aggressive, the new car looks more confident. Yes, the rear end is still here to party, but the rest of the car has matured.

On the inside, The Type R looks much like a regular Civic… until you look down. Bright red sport seats pair with vivid red floor mats and carpeted footwells. When clean, they’re conversation pieces. You can’t ignore this red, but it also looks like it could suffer from muddy shoes or snowy boots. Get it dirty, and the attention-getting aspect might be replaced with a grimy aesthetic.

The seats are extremely comfortable. Despite being heavily bolstered, they feel supportive and comfortable—we drove in them all day and never felt sore or achy. We’re also hugely impressed with the Type R’s aluminum shift knob. Beautifully weighted and impossibly smooth, it’s a critical touchpoint and completely without fault.

Below the waistline, everything in the Type R is hard, unforgiving plastic. That’s to be expected in an economy car like the Civic, and it’s a testament that when Honda was building the Type R, it made sure your hard-earned dollars were going toward performance upgrades, not luxury upgrades.

There is one reason to buy a Honda Civic Type R: to drive fast.

Yes, it has a back seat to tote your kids around and yes, it has enough cargo space for regular grocery runs. It even gets decent (if not great) fuel economy at 10.8 litres per 100 kilometres in city driving, 8.3 on the highway, and 9.7 combined.

But the Type R is a special sort of driver’s car. It is loud and sharp and visceral. It does not coax you into gently carving corners with the windows down and John Denver on the stereo. Instead, its turbo engine and six-speed manual command you to drive hard, attacking the corner and screaming past the apex. Every part of the car begs you to push it harder—ideally with some sort of speed metal blasting through the speakers.

Honda revised the 2.0-litre turbocharged VTEC four-cylinder engine and powertrain for this Civic Type R. It now makes power specs of 315 horsepower (a nine-horsepower bump) and 310 lb-ft of torque (a gain of 15). The increases are thanks to a new turbocharger, intake, and exhaust manifold.

All of that power is still sent through the front wheels, yet the Type R doesn’t suffer from significant torque steer. On the contrary, the Type R demonstrates incredibly composed road manners. Pin the throttle on a racetrack and you may notice a bit of twist through the steering wheel, but it shouldn’t bother you in typical public-road driving.

Sold with only a six-speed manual transmission, the Civic Type R employs similar rev-matching technology as the Honda Civic Si and the Acura Integra, although it works a bit more quickly in the Type R. According to Honda, a lighter flywheel makes the Type R’s downshifts 10% faster than what you’ll experience in either the Si or the Integra. Comfort, Sport, Individual, and +R drive modes let you dial in how aggressively you want the Type R’s throttle, steering, and suspension to perform. +R mode also amps up the engine sound (piped through the car’s speakers) and displays a unique gauge cluster that focuses more on the rev limit, perfect for the track.

And, even though much of its direct competition has committed to all-wheel-drive (AWD) formats, the Honda Civic Type R is still a front-wheel-drive (FWD) car. A limited-slip differential helps the Type R hold its grip through corners, but some shoppers will undoubtedly be drawn toward the AWD competition, particularly if they live in snowy regions. The FWD platform also leads to a fairly heavy front bias in the Type R’s weight distribution (62/38 front/rear), but the upside is that, overall, Honda is sporting the lightweight of the group at only 1,450 kilograms (3,200 pounds).

We found the aluminum shifter to be incredibly satisfying to feel and we appreciated the obvious detents for each gear, but the Type R has longer throws between gears than we’ve come to expect in a sports car. The Toyota GR Corolla’s transmission, for instance, feels significantly shorter between the gears. That said, both vehicles have equally long clutch travel. There’s a bit more resistance in the Corolla; the Type R’s clutch is light as a feather.

Honda also shrunk the wheels on this year’s Civic Type R. While the previous-generation car came standard with 20-inch wheels, the 2023 model ships with 19s wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires and covering standard Brembo brake calipers. Together with a sport suspension with a dual-axis independent strut front suspension and multi-link rear that proves appropriately stiff, the Honda Civic Type R was a pleasure during our first drive on public roads and at Sonoma Raceway.

Considering its sedan-turned-hatchback profile, the Civic Type R provides a surprisingly impressive amount of interior space. There is ample headroom in the front (998 mm) and back (942 mm). Legroom measures 1,074 mm for front-seat occupants, but folks in the backseat don’t lose out much with 950 mm.

Honda says the Type R will carry 695 litres of cargo behind the rear seats. While the trunk is long, it’s not particularly tall, thanks to the car’s aggressively sloped roofline. The total cargo space with the seats down is 1,204 litres.

The cupholders, positioned in tandem, are easy to reach and should handle anything from a small fountain drink to a 20-ounce water bottle. Because of their placement behind the shifter, the cupholders eat into the centre console bin’s potential space. As a result, you’re not going to use that cubbie for anything other than small knick-knacks. Honda did find room for a cubby forward of the shifter, and we’re pleased to see a standard wireless charging pad in that space, big enough for a max-sized smartphone.

Admittedly, we spent far more time in the Honda Civic Type R’s driver’s seat than we did testing out the rear seats. When we were back there, we were pleased with the leg- and headroom and the seats themselves were reasonably comfortable, if not as supportive as the great front bucket seats.

Honda has made major technological upgrades in moving from the previous-generation Civic Type R to the current model. The old car made use of a 7-inch touchscreen display that, frankly, just wasn’t very impressive. The graphics looked old and, although we liked how it was integrated into the dashboard, it has since been outstripped by the larger and more beautiful screens in competing cars.

For 2023, the Type R now gets a 9-inch touchscreen mounted atop the dash. Although it does have a little “tacked on” vibe to it, the screen’s high position does help keep the driver’s eyes closer to road level—something very important in a car like the Civic Type R. The screen is bright and crisp, and the operating system features an attractive eight-tile layout. Physical buttons for tuning, home, and back functions are positioned on the driver’s side of the screen, on either side of the physical volume knob. We were disappointed to find that the infotainment system is a bit sluggish to respond, but we hope this is a flaw that can be easily fixed with software updates.

Honda also included six touchscreen shortcut buttons along the bottom edge of the display. These can be programmed to match your most-used features.

Wireless Android Auto and wireless Apple CarPlay come standard on the 2023 Civic Type R, as does the previously mentioned wireless charging pad. A Bose premium sound system is also standard.

Honda’s LogR data logger is now designed to run without being tethered to a smartphone app. It features a lap-time recorder, tire friction circles, and an Auto Score function that measures acceleration, turning, and braking to score the driver’s smoothness. And as every racer knows, you can’t get fast until you get smooth.

LogR also displays a three-by-four tile grid of technical readouts measuring everything from engine-oil temperature to yaw rate and atmospheric pressure. It’s a lot of data to take in at once, but it can all be recorded and referenced if you do choose to connect LogR with Honda’s smartphone app.

A 10.2-inch digital instrument panel comes standard on the Type R. It’s a beautiful piece of equipment, bright and easy to read. The display is moderately customizable, and it changes based on the car’s selected driving mode. When the Type R is in +R mode, it shows the gear position, a horizontal tachometer, and an F1-style rev indicator that blends LED lights with an auditory signal to alert you when you’re coming up to the redline.

Neither the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) nor the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has completed crash-testing the 2023 Honda Civic Type R. That, on its own, shouldn’t be surprising, as these organizations usually focus on mass-market vehicles rather than performance cars. The 2023 Civic, which shares its underpinnings with the 2023 Type R, did receive a Top Safety Pick designation from the IIHS, and the 2023 Civic Hatchback has been awarded a 5-star overall rating from the NHTSA.

Honda augmented its suite of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), named Honda Sensing, to include traffic-sign recognition and a new blind-spot monitoring system. The Type R also uses a new single-camera system paired with eight sonar sensors (four in the front, four in the rear) to feed data to the ADAS. The new camera has a forward view twice as wide as the previous multi-camera array and can look further ahead than the old hardware.

Other ADAS include forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, lane-departure warning, and road-departure mitigation. We found the Type R to be a tough car to drive responsibly—it does urge you to drive aggressively—but if you can overcome that instinct, you’ll find yourself piloting an impressively safe hot hatchback.

Honda sells the new Civic Type R in one trim level, priced in Canada at $50,050 (not including a $1,780 destination fee). It sits well above the Hyundai Elantra N and the Subaru WRX, but it also provides more power than both those cars, plus it delivers more precise driving dynamics than the WRX.

Closer hot hatch rivals to the Type R would be the Volkswagen Golf R and the Toyota GR Corolla. The Golf R starts a bit higher than the Type R at a new vehicle price of $48,495 (not including destination of $1,750), while the GR Corolla’s Core trim starts at a more affordable $45,490—which shoots up to $53,990 if you upgrade to the GR Corolla Circuit Edition.

This makes the Civic Type R very competitively priced and a compelling option, assuming you can do without all-wheel drive. If the drivetrain is a sticking point, we recommend test driving either the Golf R or the GR Corolla—or starting a letter-writing campaign to the brass at Honda.

Note: Images show a US model.