Civic minded; The Honda Civic Type R wowed on its launch is it as

Sunday Herald, The, Sep 15, 2002 by Allan Donald

IT'S been repeated so often it's now accepted as a concrete truth: the glory days of the hot hatch died with the Peugeot 205 GTi, and everything since has been a pale shadow of that toe-steered master.

At first glance, there is something in the assertion: the shiny alloy wheels, wide-bore exhausts and lowered suspensions can't hide the truth that today's boyracers are likely to be whipping the guts out of a 1.2-litre engine. And why? The insurance companies, of course. They took a dislike to the hot hatch from the start, and nearly threw a fit when Ford unveiled the steal-me, steal-me Sierra RS Cosworth. Each fatter and softer generation of the one-time standard bearer Golf GTi (climaxing in the current "steerable sponge" effort) didn't do much for the genre, either.

But there's always going to be a market for barking levels of power and laugh-out-loud fun at sensible prices, and the manufacturers knew it. A few years lying low, went the thinking, and we'll sneak them back on the market.

Looking at the field now offers a wealth of choices: Ford's already fine Focus is coming in proper RS Turbo form any second now, Renault's RenaultSport Clio 172 is another tiny monster, the Mini Cooper gets faster and faster it's enough to shake a motoring journalist's certainties. Which is exactly what happened on the Honda Civic Type R's British launch on the Isle of Man.

Unleashed on a closed section of the famous TT course, the hack pack thrashed the life out of these wee gems, and pronounced itself well pleased. But would it stand the test of time and how would it survive on Scotland's slightly more unkempt roads just over a year later?

In short: it's as astonishing as ever. The lowered, tweaked body bears about as little resemblance to its suburban box sibling as white quarried stuff does to dried-out milk, and is far more lickable.

What was once too-new a design to properly assess has matured into an aggressive sports stance; this is a car that clears the outer lane by the sheer power of its presence (not to mention the alarming rate it grows in the rear-view mirror at). The arch-filling multi-spoke alloys also aid this differentiation, and the discreet Type R and red "H" badging point the cognoscenti in the right direction.

The feel of exclusivity is retained in the cabin, with sports seats, leather sports wheel, an aluminum top on the short-throw dash- mounted shifter and a metal plate engraved with the car's serial number. OK, it's not as cool to be driving car 0016018 as it was to have 0000020, but the spirit's still there. This car had the optional (and asthmatic) air-conditioning, that, along with other tweaks, takes the price up to (pounds) 17,195, and if that doesn't strike you as exactly cheap, consider what you get: 0-60 in 6.8 seconds, a top speed of 146mph (ahem, where "conditions" "allow"), a combined economy of 31.7mpg, all thanks to a 200PS 2.0-litre i-VTec powerplant delivering to the front wheels through a six-speed gearbox.

There's simply nothing on the market as powerful for that sort of money, and lack of air-con on the (pounds) 15,995 base model aside, the car doesn't feel in any way cheap, save perhaps for the nasty remote unit for the central locking/alarm.

From the world's largest engine manufacturer you'd expect something special, and the Type R doesn't disappoint. This unassuming little powerplant is easily the best thing to ever happen to a Civic. It offers ferocious battering power when the VTec opens the valves up fully, and at 6000rpm the shove's so strong it may as well be turboed. It does mean working the gears a lot to keep the revs high, and that can be an unnecessary worry on unfamiliar roads, but on my usual test routes personal best records were being smashed with glee.

Everything about this car is enjoyable. It doesn't matter that the tyres roar on every surface, that the engine's thrum is a constant presence and that there's not a hope in hell of the stereo ever being loud enough: driving this is fun, authentic giggle-out-loud fun.

Until the fuel needle hits E, again. The tank on this car feels like it's the size of a (smallish) petrol canister. The claimed figures for economy are reasonable enough, yet even in those rare moments that the chat isn't full, the money needle's heading downwards at scary rates. Two-hundred-mile journeys necessitate stops, and despite a full tank not being a mortgage proposition, the psychological effects of stopping yet again soon mount up. And all those snatched forecourt Mars bars are just going to make those figure-hugging seats cosier and cosier.

The other delight to this car, and it only really reveals itself when you tear your attention away from the tachometer, is the suspension. As you notice that each corner, regardless of tightness, has been a calmly dealt with lake of tranquillity (leaving you free to worry about keeping the revs high and the tank full) you realise that some serious work has gone into the chassis here. So confident are Honda of the roadholding capabilities of this car that it doesn't have any traction control fitted. On most cars of this level of power, this would mean near-instant wheelspin, car spin and general unpleasantness. Not here. The Civic just goes about the business of getting faster, and of throwing itself round bends. It's a bit unsettled in the wet, but in the dry there's practically nothing you can do that would so much as furrow a brow. The stopping's pretty impressive too, with unfadable brakes.