I can’t remember the last time I drove a manual car and frankly few have inspired as much as my recent drive of the Honda Civic Type R – a simply exhilarating and rewarding car to drive and one for the true believers in performance – the Civic Type R hatch reinforcing my perception that Honda has finally moved back to building some impressive product – its current SUV range, the HR-V, ZR-V and new CR-V all lifting the bar. The Civic Type R five-door hatch is all about performance – it’s had a long lineage now in its sixth generation – not inexpensive at $72,600 drive-away but this is a car that’s excels in all it does – with a sports body kit, rear spoiler and 19-inch alloy wheels shod with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S performance tyres. A highly tuned 2.0-litre turbocharged engine with 235kW’s and 450Nm of torque driving through the front wheels via a six- speed manual gearbox and limited slip differential with three available drive modes. Inside deep and supportive sports bucket seats, surprisingly comfortable given their sports nature. Rear seat comfort tight especially headroom and disappointingly without air vents. The Honda Civic Type R is all about driving which I’ll detail next segment.

Download this podcast here