The Honda Civic Type R (FK8) was met with great anticipation among car enthusiasts, and for good reason. The car's impressive performance capabilities, combined with its sleek styling, made it a highly sought-after vehicle. In our video review of the car, we had the opportunity to take it out on the road and put it through its paces.

One of the things that stands out about the FK8 is its stiffness and rigidity. The car's body structure has been significantly improved over previous models, with a focus on creating a more rigid chassis. This results in a more responsive and engaging driving experience, making the car feel more planted and connected to the road. We were impressed by the car's performance, particularly when driven flat out, where it delivered impressive acceleration and handling.

However, there was one major complaint that we had with the FK8: its engine sound. The car's engine has a distinctive "beep beep" sound effect, which some enthusiasts found to be annoying and distracting. We shared this sentiment, but noted that this was likely due to budget constraints on the part of Honda. As we mentioned in our video review, the lack of a mechanical sound tube meant that the car's engine was unable to produce the more aggressive and satisfying sound effects that many driving enthusiasts crave.

Despite this criticism, we were thoroughly impressed with the FK8's overall package. The car's interior is a particular highlight, with a focus on comfort and usability. The seats are particularly notable, offering improved support and ergonomics compared to previous models. We also appreciated the attention to detail in the cabin, including the red interior trim and throwback-inspired styling cues.

One of the biggest questions that we saw raised by enthusiasts was whether the FK8 was a big enough upgrade from the FK8's predecessor. While there are certainly many carryovers between the two cars, such as the improved body structure and cooling system, there are also some significant changes. The new car's styling, for example, is a major departure from the more angular and aggressive lines of the previous model.

We were pleased to find that the FK8 offered a more refined and comfortable driving experience than we had expected. On the regular street tires and in comfort mode, the car was a joy to drive, with a focus on smoothness and stability. However, when driven flat out, the FK8's true nature was revealed, offering impressive acceleration and handling.

Another aspect of the FK8 that we appreciated was its build quality. The car's production process has been significantly improved over previous models, resulting in a more robust and durable product. We were particularly impressed by the paint quality on our test car, which seemed to be superior to some of the lower-end cars that Honda has produced in recent years.

However, one area where we saw significant improvement was in the dealerships themselves. Many enthusiasts reported seeing markups on the FK8's price, with some dealerships reportedly charging upwards of $10,000 more than the car's sticker price. We shared this sentiment, and strongly advised viewers to do their research and avoid any dealerships that were trying to gouge them.

Ultimately, our experience with the Honda Civic Type R (FK8) was overwhelmingly positive. The car offers a unique blend of performance, comfort, and usability that makes it an excellent choice for enthusiasts and everyday drivers alike. While there are certainly some minor criticisms to be had, we believe that these can be largely overlooked in favor of the FK8's many strengths.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe Honda Civic Type R the fl-5 this video is going to cover our Impressions from the launch program at Sonoma California where we drove it on track we drove it on street we interviewed the chief engineer and we learned all of the changes good and bad to this vehicle so you can kind of understand that this is going to be our first impressions of the vehicle we had about 24 hours with this car in California and because this guy is buying a fl5 CTR in the next couple weeks we will be following this up with a very technical Deep dive where we're going to be throwing this thing up on the dyno on the lift and fully dissect this car from a technical perspective and give you a very long Street drive but before we talk about the technical aspects of this vehicle very briefly let's introduce the chief engineer foreign foreign from technology that we got from previous type bars and also from the Integra type bar two things that we put in which were particularly important were the speed and the pleasure of driving and we made sure to make it lighter improve all of the aspects those are the things the most important to me we spent a lot of time with this man almost at nauseam for him to the point where he wanted to run away from us and he is a very Japanese gentleman with a Japanese perspective on how to design cars albeit he has a very impressive resume but the first thing I want to talk about with this 11th gen CTR is that this is a fully Japanese car minus the drivetrain which is built here in the United States go deal the engine well yeah the engine is built here in the U.S which is the heart of the car to be found yeah which so let's cover that briefly 11th gen architecture is what's enabled them to make us a better car people ask what's the big difference is when you look at it on paper like they didn't change a whole lot but because it's in a completely different like body and white there's more structural adhesives the ring structure is more rigid in the hatch area the door area so all of this gives them more flexibility and design and it's also a longer and wider car which means there is more space under the hood for for ventilation there's more space from the turbo to the radiator and intercooler so it just gives them a better starting point to make a high performance car it's about 15 percent more rigid it's like an inch and a half longer an inch and change wider when it comes to the width the big thing you're going to notice is tires it's going from a 245 to a 265 and you can get optional sport cup twos from your dealer installed so they had to change the suspension as well suspension tuning wise you have the same spring rate you have the same sway bars but you get stiffer bushings and more adjustability on the dampers so on the high end or the top end the dampers are far more firm on the soft end they're about what they used to be so it's not an intolerable street car but on the track primarily to deal with the fact that you're going to put stickier tires on this car the dampers are far stiffer to the point where it almost upsets the car at least in cup twos yeah and it this is going to be the big argument is it too stiff and I think they were playing the long game here and this is what I'm getting from the chief engineer cup twos are pretty sticky the cup 2rs are out so those are like our comps for the street all your new track day tires are ridiculous already 71 RMS they're just there literally are cheater Tire R comps that have a pretty Progressive fall off so when you have tires like that and then even the stickier tires later you're gonna need dampers that are going to be able to scale out to those type of tires that's why they did the bushing change in the lower control arms because it the camber stability is much greater in this car than it was on the fk8 so when you load up lateral load you don't get the tire you maintain a better contact patch long story short that's what it's about but you do sacrifice right quality even though they spread out the damper profile the damping curves are more aggressive it the the Comfort mode is where you're going to live 99 of your life and even on the track some tracks are going to wind up setting in a comfort mode which we'll talk about a bit later the other thing to talk about as well is the aftermarket of this vehicle what I'm sure he was thinking about when it came to the damper tuning is when you put a wider wheel on top higher on this car if you put like a 275 or 285 if it fits you might overwhelm the prior generation damping tuning of this vehicle let's talk about Arrow next Marcus that's a big thing for this vehicle so this car was developed on Suzuka which is an F1 track the surface is glass it's a very high speed circuit Nurburgring for like final tuning and then of course the scuba which is like a club track it's like all this lower horsepower cars it's like the funnest place so between those three tracks they were really able to hone high speed stability and all of this was wind tunnel tested and validated from their race program and even Mugen was involved in the tuning of like the fl5 race car so they kind of co-developed all this stuff at the same time to find a good balance for Street mostly track and then the future parts from Mugen that are coming out like the wing is extended up to the roof line more GT3 Style with front splitter to balance out Arrow of that so they really did think about this stuff and it was tested and that extends to to body treatments fenders all the quarter panels are different the entire all the body panels on this car different from a regular Civic they are no longer tacked on plastic pieces like on the fk8 so all this gives them better balance including Cooling and I mentioned this early earlier with having that bigger body structure there's going to be less heat soak as well so when you get to that high temperature threshold where you would the the engine or the tuning would start to dial back power on the fk8 this is able to maintain power longer and its recovery time is quicker on cool off so you can get back out there so the opening in the front the radiator opening is like 40 to 45 percent bigger which AIDS in the cooling you get more brake cooling as well while the physical hardware for the rotors and like calipers are essentially identical they do cool better between the wheel design and the opening for the brakes as well the water pump pulley has been changed there are a few extra rows in the radiator and the fan shroud has been reduced in size but the fan diameter is larger so cooling overall is improved across the board while it is still the two liter you know and love they did change the turbo charger it makes more power and when you look at Dyno charts at least of the dyno charts that hondata published it makes more torque much earlier yeah you're looking at like real world according to dyno about 30 more pounds of torque between like that 2400 to 4 4 000 5000 RPM and there's a boost in Horsepower as well that's related to some of the turbo changes and of course the intake the intake tubing and some of that tuning there between intake and exhaust was the reason why you have the extra horsepower so there's just better breathability there and they did add on that intake tube There Is That Type R box that people wondered what it is and that is a sound resonator to try to create some type of harmonics from the engine because you don't hear anything in this car it's like a giant vacuum cleaner they claim they changed internals to the shifter the shifter linkage is excellent I don't know what the change they didn't tell us but it does have a lighter weight flywheel than it used to have which is also also responsible for why the rev matching system is much more quick to respond there's a sport and a comfort response mode which doesn't make much sense honestly but you can still disable rev match but it's buried within the system menus like the the driver assist settings so when you turn that off there the drive mode selector in individual is not smart enough to know that it's turned off so it still leaves you with Sport and like normal option for rev matching even though it no longer works so some of the software stuff about this car in terms of Drive modes as well like when you get in a plus r you can't change anything that means dampers are locked in full stiff that means that the fake engine noise is locked on so they've added individual mode so you can put everything there the way you want you can turn off fake engine noise you can have rev matching off you can have dampers and full stiff steering in the most less assisted or more assisted setting but the fine prints of that is you can't turn stability control off all the way the only mode you can turn stability control off completely isn't plus r and then you're locked in all those other settings so there are some problems here with the way they finally configure this or the configuration or calibration of some of these setups before we take this for a drive around Sonoma I want to kind of summarize this guy's philosophical views spending time with him he knows and he acknowledged it both on and off camera that this is the last time the type R will be purely internal combustion the next version of this is going to be some EV or hybrid pile so he wanted to go out and make the most extreme Type R as possible and he was relying on the configurability of the drive modes to allow there to be that big like Broadband width of making it something tolerable in the street while also making it as Extreme as he could possibly make it within the confines of it being a 45 for 44 000 cars possible yeah I think that's a really good that's a that's a good way to sum it up and I would agree with that but let's take this out on Sonoma Raceway and we're going to kind of talk about whether what the feeling is of this car overall with all the work that they put into it foreign the new Civic Type R before we talk about all the technical stuff and what it's like to drive on the street let's talk about how it is on the track how does this feel compared to last car well the first impression Jack is we just got done with the gr Corolla event and there was a lack of enthusiasm pretty much from everybody not that there was anything wrong with it but I think part of it was is it lacked a lot of the fun that this car has out of the box it has a sense of edginess to it it's fast and I hate to say this I mean as much as the engine makes a lot of power it has almost no character and you can hear the fake engine noise but this you can't disable and you can't put this outside of our mode if you want everything off yeah which is really a downer and I'm sure the aftermarket will fix that other thing I noticed Mark is compared to the last car and we talked to the chief engineer this is far stiffer he did it by Design so it's running the same stability parts of the last car ran it's running the same spring rates so it's all damper tuning and bushings but this car is far far stiffer when he told me off camera is he wanted plus our mode to be ridiculous which and it no it is dude I mean this is such an edgy this is the edgiest Honda I've ever driven since like the first gen S2000 I guess I never drove the NSX Type R but man this thing is this killer out here it's so much fun to drive and yes it is way too stiff for Sonoma big surprise is this is a bumpy track so you almost if you could get this thing into Comfort mode that would be ideal but you can't so you have to ride around getting your ass beat up and plus arm mode to get all the stability control off I spoke to Brian eversley who was the Pro driver we were chasing earlier today and even agreed that this car is so stiff that on this bumpy track under braking particularly going into the carousel later on this course it almost upsets the car itself yeah the front though with these cup twos that we're on right now for the track portion it does a really good job putting power down you may not feel a lot the front end of the vehicle but physically it's putting all of its horsepower down and torque this thing is flying too I mean once you get used to this car the brakes have held up pretty much I mean you're gonna need track pads if you're doing 20 minute sessions but I mean this thing is just incredible steering is decent brakes are great it's so direct it's so quick to respond the chassis communication oh my god dude it just is like and if you suddenly lift in this Carousel the front end turns in this thing moves around so much in such a good way and then when you lift it just rotates just enough to get you through the corner and now granted or we've only driven on the cup twos I've been driven on the other tires and I'm sure it's a totally different story with that that but how's the gearbox in the pedal box from here no grinds zero issue with shift quality such a fun car man I almost no complaints about it other than it being really stiff and the engine being relatively yeah it's such a downer and we know from talking to him the reason why is budget they didn't have a budget to do more of like a mechanical style sound tube so you got to listen to this which we will instantly disable for sure but with that Jack let's head into the final thoughts thank you final thoughts on the fl5 one of the biggest questions that I've seen is is it a big enough upgrade from the fk8 because in large part there's many carryovers here the biggest change is the body structure the stiffness the rigidity the cooling a lot of these things add up and one of the reasons why I never got into fk8 was The Styling which if you didn't like that you're probably gonna like this car and vice versa that's all subjective but the takeaway is after driving this on the street on the regular street tires and comfort mode this is a joy to drive the way that the interior is configured the visibility the cargo capacity it's it feels very throwback to the old generation Civics that I grew up with so I like that feeling of it including the carpet the red interior which is gonna look horrible you know if you've ever seen an old S2000 with red interior or the old type bars that weren't taking care of the red is going to be like black stains all over it so it is cool but you know some of it's gimmicky the seats are amazing you know if you're wondering like are the seeds better than the previous generation they are you didn't think they could get better but they improved it the shifter feel is better the changes these minor changes added up to a lot in the driving experience and when you drive it flat out it is it feels like you're doing work but in a good way like I went back and looked at Honda's GoPro footage of me driving this car and it's like I had rev matching off I had stability control and I'm like I'm really working but I'm really feeling like I'm part of the driving experience and that's exactly what the chief engineer wanted you to feel like he wanted it to be that edgy car and is it going to be as fast as like a Mustang GT or a Camaro ss1le or even maybe a gr 86 with a real setup probably not but it's super super enjoyable and it's one of those few cars that is absolutely usable because of the hatch space and all that you can use it as a family car assuming you can deal with some of the stiffer ride the other thing is is if you're a true like Honda Fanboy which I kind of used to be one of the reasons why I loved some of the Honda products it was all Japanese it was these guys that had this you know you put them on a pedestal these are Gods because you knew nothing about them this kind of takes you back it's a purely Japanese developed car with that mentality there from a guy that worked on some of the classic Hondas that we love and you feel some of that here even though it's still a Civic so I think you're gonna like that part of it as well the build quality seems to be better than the last gen in the Swindon Factory especially near the end the paint quality is not horrible at least on the first production cars that we saw but the last thing to talk about here the dealerships and this is what everybody's talking about across the board from exotic cars to Specialty cars even to a Honda Civic this car is about forty five thousand dollars and I'm gonna tell you 100 you should not be paying more than 45 000 dollars for a Civic as great as this car is it's not worth paying a 10 or a twenty thousand dollar markup for if you see this and you're interested in this car in North America you 100 have to wait you need to get on the forums and Report every single dealership and the sales person that is trying to gouge you and just tell them no it's the only way it'll stop right now at the launch of this car there's barely 500 in the United States and that's because Japan has 10 000 orders to fill for their domestic customer base so you're going to see a shortage of these cars for quite a while and you know be patient do not be paying markups because it's not worth more than that and just be smart about it I'll do my best as I get this car and I own this car to kind of be involved in the community of it and getting back to Honda about some of these things and seeing where this car goes but I really enjoy driving this and I've really enjoyed making this video for once thanks for watching I'll see you next time foreign\n"