Spied: New Honda Civic Type-R

The Honda Civic Type-R has been spied circulating the Nordschleife and testing on European roads alongside some of the most powerful hot hatches, the Opel Astra OPC and limited edition Ford Focus RS500.

It may be cloaked in camoflague, but the Honda Civic Type-R is still showing some rather serious looking performance enhancements. With know-how no doubt coming from experience gathered in the British and World Touring Car Championships (BTCC and WTCC), the Civic Type-R is wearing an aggressive aerodynamics package that includes a new front bumper, extended side skirts and a prominent rear wing. A set of high-performance brakes are also evident and there’s no hiding the quad-exhaust pipes protruding from the rear diffuser.

The engine remains a mystery for now, with a 2.0-litre turbocharged 4-cylinder being a reasonable assumption, especially considering it’s the popular choice for everything from the Golf GTI, Renault Megane RS, Opel Astra OPC, through to the more powerful Mercedes-Benz A45 AMG. Honda have previously said they won’t go the way of turbocharging, but if they plan to take the front-wheel drive 8m7.97s lap record at the Nurburgring away from the Renault Megane RS, we suspect they’ll need to match its 195 kW and 360 Nm of torque at the very least.

While testing may be in progress, the new Civic Type-R is not expected to roll off the production line until the end of 2014.

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