Honda has let one of their most prolific engineers build the last purely internal combustion powered sports car from the brand’s 30-year history of Type R, and when you look past the spec sheet you’ll find a brilliant car that will remind you why you became a car enthusiast.

The Honda Civic Type R is a vehicle with which I’m familiar. I put 80,000 miles on my 2019 FK8 Civic Type R. From countless drives on Angeles Crest Highway and other canyon roads to cross-country road trips, long commutes, and a NYC to LA Cannonball Run, I got to understand the car more than the average driver. But a few months ago, I got a chance to see the 2023 FL5 Civic Type R as it was unveiled in LA. Last week, I got thrown the keys to this new Type R and for seven days and 1100 miles, I got to drive the car to find out what this new generation is all about. I’m sure in just about any other article on the FL5 you can find out about its 315-horsepower output, its 0-60 time, or other data, but for this review, I’ll be focusing more on the intangible differences between this car and the last generation. 

We must first understand what this car was built for. This is where I get to tell you that it shares something in common with a McLaren F1. Before you say that is the most ridiculous thing you’ve read all day, I ask you to understand how important the design intentions of the car’s lead designer are to the finished product. Both cars were not built around specs regarding top speed, 0-60mph, or lap times. Gordon Murray set out to create the most reliable, engaging sports car for the road, that through his brilliance, turned out to also be one of the greatest cars of all time. Hideki Kakinuma, one of the engineering leads for some of Honda’s greatest cars (including every Civic Type R generation) had one clear goal for this car: Unparalleled Driving Pleasure. Both cars and both engineers understood that by creating a car that you can feel connected to, it would allow the driver to push the car in such a way that makes the performance more than the sum of its parts. Engagement and feel triumph an engineering data point or a marketing lead initiative. The hallmarks of legendary cars. Fun Fact before we get back on the task at hand: Gordon Murray used the NSX as one of his benchmarks for how he wanted the McLaren F1 to feel and take some of its better traits, which was designed by Hideki Kakinuma’s mentor at Honda, Shigeru Uehara. 

If you want the quick answer on if this new generation Type R is better than the last, the short answer is yes. By the numbers, it’s not much, but there is much more to what makes this new car better than what you might see on the surface. It takes everything that made the last generation Type R a modern-day legend among car nerds, and fixes some of its weak points. Overall, their personalities have changed to match their exteriors. If the last-gen car felt like it wanted to be a raw edged homage to the Kanjozoku Civics that inspired much of modern JDM culture, this new Civic Type R has refined itself on its mission for speed. It has now begun to feel more like it wants to be a junior Porsche GT car. 

Let’s talk about the car’s styling. I’ll be honest, I never liked the way my old car looked. The FK8 was polarizing with its styling. Some called it a Gundam character on four wheels, others just called it ugly. I was willing to put up with it because the car just drove so well and remained practical and reliable for 80,000 miles while simultaneously delivering a world-class driving experience. Few cars can do what an FK8 was all around capable of doing for under $40,000. This new car solves most of those complaints, almost too much. The FL5 is remarkably toned down with odd shapes, instead adopting a more purposeful and simple design. Pictures do not do the car justice and I wouldn’t call the car boring. In person, the flared fenders remind me of an E46 BMW, not shouting to the world its intention as a performance car, but subtly reminding anyone who notices that this is more than just a run-of-the-mill Civic SI. Overall, I think the new car looks fantastic, and the cleaner lines and soft edges remind me of the first Generation CTR: The EK9 Civic Type R released in 1997 to the Japanese Market. 

On its surface, this new car appears to have a lot of the same hardware as the last car. But dig deeper, and you’ll see that everything has been refined and worked on to make it even better. Remember, the R34 Skyline that everyone loves is largely an R33 GT-R (which is largely an R32) that had been refined to the point of becoming a legend. The 992 generation Porsche 911 GT3 carries a lot of the same hardware as the 991.2 GT3, but it became so much faster through refinement and tuning. If a car is great, you don’t need to reinvent them when tuning has created some of the most legendary sports cars in history and this car is no different. 

The K-series engine from Honda is iconic for its reliability, and strength in Honda’s lineup for decades and the K20C1 returns in this new car from the last generation. Now, it’s sporting a new turbo that helps deliver power for more effective low-end torque delivery. This was something I immediately felt as a difference between the new and last-generation cars. Highway passes seemed easier without downshifting, and while it may not deliver power as “peaky” in nature, it’s no less fun. The additional horsepower for this new car was gained through the improved turbo, a freer flowing exhaust, and re-engineered air intake. It has nothing to do with that Type R badge under the engine bay, that’s just for resonance. 

The chassis shines in the new generation. The changes led to a 15% increase in overall torsional rigidity due to the increased use of structural adhesives and changes to the structural components of the chassis itself. The car now feels more akin to what I had done to my FK8 after installing Spoon Rigid Collars (subframe bolt on’s to help with a perfect and more structurally intact fit for the front and rear subframes to the chassis.) As I was driving the car along Angeles Crest highway, I felt much more confident in the car. Approaching the limits was not a matter of the chassis’ willingness to communicate to the driver, but a matter of the tire’s grip on the road. You can throw every great component at a sports car, but if the underlying chassis can’t communicate to the driver about how the car is behaving based on their inputs, nothing else matters. Thankfully, the chassis on the FL5 is brilliant, and one of the highlights. A stiff chassis with proper damping will put the power down, but that is where we find one controversial aspect of the 2023 Civic Type R.

The damping setting for the FL5 is very stiff. For some roads, it may be too stiff. On a perfectly smooth road or track this will greatly help put the power down with the wider contact patch and increased mid-corner lateral g-forces. This comes at the expense of the fantastically compliant ride from the last-gen car that made it an odd contradiction with its anime character appearance. The new car’s Sport mode feels like the last car’s +R mode, and the new +R mode feels like it sets the rebound and compression to zero. It’s stiff and can jostle you around on the rougher patches of Angeles Crest Highway or Glendora Mountain Road, but thankfully the seats are spectacular at holding you in place. The car is still just as good at putting the power down if not better, you just have to get used to being tossed around a bit. Proper race car things. 

One very welcome change for the new car is the ability to independently adjust many of the car’s inputs and settings with the individual drive mode. If the ride is too stiff for your favorite track or road, you can set that to sport mode or even comfort while keeping the throttle response and steering in +R mode. After playing with the individual mode, I found what felt like the goldilocks ride mode for canyon roads. The only downside to this is that Honda will not allow you to turn off traction control in Individual mode. Luckily for you, there is a workaround that is essentially a series of buttons to press that act like a cheat code to unlock traction control in individual mode. If Honda would just allow its drivers to turn this off so that you can access softer damper settings for track days without traction control, that would be a fantastic over-the-air update. 

Some of the best updates for the car lie within the mechanical and aero changes that may not immediately become apparent unless you drive this car hard on the track: Cooling. The FL5 has made significant gains in the use of the car’s aerodynamics to help it stay cooler for longer. The change to a single larger radiator fan, 48% larger opening for the radiator, larger radiator core size, and a hood vent to extract hot air from the rear of the radiator means you can drive this car for more laps before feeling any heat soak or overheating issues. The cooling ducts for the front brake rotors felt like they were near double the size of the FK8. This is the difference between a car that can run a ten-minute session or a thirty min session. For most people, they’ll probably never see how important this is. If you are trying to get more consistent lap times, though, it’s a big help to staying out there. 

Nearly every other input in this car has been refined, however small or major the changes may seem. The brakes remain the same as the 2020 update to the FK8, but with the improved cooling mentioned previously. The pedal feels remarkably similar with fairly good initial bite but perfectly weighted progressive push in the pedal to dial in just the right amount of brake force. The steering feels familiar, but even more accurate thanks to precise on-center calibration and progressive off-center stability. There is good feedback for an electric steering rack. You can be clinically accurate with where you place this car onto an apex.   

Then there is the gearbox, my favorite improvement on the car. The FK8 had a fantastic shifter, that was well weighted, with short but easily managed throws between gears and a satisfyingly well-weighted clutch pedal. It had its problems, though. Fourth gear tended to prematurely eat itself alive if you tuned the car in the aftermarket and took it to too many track days. Also, there was a commonly found grind going into second gear no matter what transmission fluid you tried. Speaking with James, the owner of Ghostwerks (a well-respected Honda Transmission master who helped build several prolific Honda race cars including Spoon Sports FK8 race car that won the 25 hours of Thunderhill), the likely issue revolved around the teeth on the 1-2 gear synchro sleeve, or the clutch master cylinder delay valve. The issue with the teeth is they were spaced further apart than in many other typical gearboxes and that makes engagement into second a bit… grinding. I was not able to confirm all of the minute changes for the new car, but I am pleased to report it feels fantastic and no grinding occurred over my 1,100 miles with the car. The shifter now feels more notchy, and slightly heavier but more precise. It gave me a hint of how a gated shifter feels without all the drawbacks of being terrible to actually use no matter how cool they look or feel. It just felt like a more precisely put-together bit of machinery and the driving experience is all the better for it. I have never driven a Porsche GT3 manual. (Editor’s Note: I have and it rules so hard.) However, from my own experience this is the best manual gearbox I have ever driven in a car. Ever. From trusted friends who have driven both, this isn’t much far off when it comes to greatest shifting experiences. The fact we are talking about a highly modified economy commuter hatchback with one of the greatest sports cars of the modern era just goes to show what Hideki Kakinuma and his team achieved. 

The modern tech in the car is a welcome change from the FK8. While the 2020 updates to the FK8 brought Honda’s “Honda Sensing” active safety features to include blind spot warning, adaptive cruise control, lane centering, and auto emergency braking. For a manual, this is a treat on road trips. I took a 200 miles road trip to San Diego and back and observed 31.1 mpg while the adaptive cruise control and lane centering did a fantastic job reducing any unnecessary inputs from me. With the dampers in comfort, this is a shockingly comfortable highway cruiser. The Bose sound system won’t win any awards for the best car audio ever invented, but it’s really good for a $42,000 track-focused sports car, and a welcome improvement over the FK8. 

I could continue to go on and on about just how wonderful this car is to drive. But I can’t just leave the car’s faults at its stiff damper settings. I have to come clean about some things I felt were a step backward. The first is the lack of storage space inside the car. The trunk is huge, but when it comes to the center console, door pockets, or places to put any small items you may keep with you, there is an oddly minimal amount of storage. The 10th-generation Civic had an absolutely cavernous center console with a storage shelf in front of the shifter. Both are now gone, and in its place is a center console that won’t even let you rest your entire arm on it, and barely will fit a sunglasses case and little more. The trunk is missing the side panel that let you fit some items out of sight back there, and the under-trunk floor storage is much shallower. I wouldn’t mind this if the trade-off is a larger fuel tank but it remains the small 12.4-gallon tank. Be prepared to stop for gas every 250-300 miles. Is this the end of the world? No. Would it be nice if the tank was a few gallons larger so we could spend less time pumping multiple times a week? Yes. My only other noticeable complaint with the car was the quality of the backup camera. For a car built in 2023, the resolution is just plain bad. 

The new Civic Type R is a legend in the making. But who is it for? For anyone looking to upgrade from an FK8, this may not deliver the performance improvements you are looking for. By the numbers, the car is only incrementally better. If you are looking for car that will spend a fair bit of its life on track and you don’t want to go through the aftermarket trouble of sorting out the FK8’s cooling issues, the FL5 makes sense. If you are looking for a car to win drag races this is not the car for you. If you are looking for the most hardcore, track-focused sports car under $50,000, this FWD hatchback is probably not going to be your first choice either. So why would someone be willing to pay $44,390 for this new CTR? 

If you have to try and explain this car purchase to anyone based on a spreadsheet then they are not the target audience. This is a driver’s car. It is a masterfully crafted enthusiast’ dream at a price that a mere mortal can just about afford. This is a gateway drug to an ever-increasingly expensive addiction to the love of driving. This is a distillation of everything enthusiasts have loved about the greatest Honda sports cars of the past thirty years into a handsomely designed send-off before the new electric era fully dawns on us. It is a love letter to driving. Engineering is what separates mankind from the animal kingdom. Our connection with the machines we build gives us a deeper insight into the human condition. This car is one of the greatest examples of exploring our relationship with the automobile. You will want to find every back road and attend every track day you can with the Type R. Hideki Kakinuma and his team accomplished their goal to build a car that makes you want to drive forever. Numbers and spec sheets be damned.

The 2023 Honda Civic Type R is a triumph. 

[Images courtesy of Matt Eugenio – https://www.instagram.com/matt_eugenio/]