Honda Civic Sort R (FL5) | Vehicles to be glad about

Many ideas happen to you when within the firm of the decidedly great FL5, most notably how few you see coming the opposite method. The truth is, I can’t recall a single one in seven days. That is comprehensible given its infamously punchy asking worth: £51,905 is roughly twice what an EP3 value even adjusted for inflation. Equally notable is the variety of miles Honda’s UK press automotive has endured: almost 14,000 finally rely. Which, for a media-facing instance of a present mannequin, is a considerable quantity. Presumably it goes out so much. That is comprehensible, too. 

Had been we left solely to our personal gadgets, the FL5 would seemingly be a bi-monthly customer to the PH workplace. In the identical method that Autocar used to ask a Caterham Seven to its annual dealing with day yearly as a form of palette cleanser, so the Civic Sort R could be repeatedly ushered again to remind us what an honest-to-goodness sizzling hatch feels prefer to drive. Not so way back it had a number of distinguished rivals to place as class chief; now, solely the Ford Focus ST replicates the quintessential configuration of four-cylinder engine, guide gearbox, and front-wheel drive. And as we found this week, its production run is all but done. 

This place on the finish of the highway alone would assure the FL5 a distinguished place in our good books – and had the automotive’s inestimable qualities been summoned up from what appeared like nowhere (as Toyota did with the GR Yaris), our respect and admiration could be a lot the identical. But the truth that it belongs not solely to the broader Sort R dynasty, but in addition one of many nice sizzling hatch lineages – and was constructed within the UK for a major time frame – earns it the form of misty-eyed affection normally reserved for the ultimate public look of nationwide treasures. To name it a automotive to be glad about doesn’t actually start to explain the CTR’s legacy on this nation. 

Or, certainly, to a number of generations of automotive lovers. The mannequin’s existence famously exceeds its 25 years of availability within the UK, although you hardly must be lengthy within the tooth to recall the good popularity the EK9 solid from 6,000 miles away. Most likely it was overshadowed by the gray import clamour for all issues turbocharged and all-wheel drive within the late ‘90s, however the limited-edition Jordan left an impression on anybody fortunate sufficient to sit down in a single – as did the God-like DC2 Integra Sort R that additionally featured a hand-built VTEC’d B-series engine, and drove like no front-wheel-drive automotive ever had. 

The plain urge for food for all issues JDM was rewarded in 2001 with the home-baked EP3. Certain, it wasn’t fairly as trick or as mild because the EK9 (or fairly pretty much as good because the model shipped again to Japan), but it surely was manufactured in Swindon and due to this fact very a lot ours by rights. Home manufacturing made it extra reasonably priced, too, and its barely unusual look didn’t forestall consumers from launching themselves at it with gusto. Dealing with sophistication properly past the capabilities of the humble bread van would are available in later years, but a lot that’s good concerning the FL5 could be traced again to the EP3 and the Sort R blueprint it helped lay down. 

It was sufficiently good that its successor, justifiably or not, by no means fairly emerged from its shadow. The short-lived FK2 fastened the FN2’s chief limitation (inadequate energy) by sullying its newly launched Ok-series engine with a turbocharger. One imagines the Honda technicians doing this with the solemnness of Princess Anne opening a hospice, however, after all, it was the making of the modern-era CTR, combining the sugar rush of VTEC revs with the form of mid-range thrust that consumers have come to anticipate in the actual world. The brand new output, all 310hp of it, was sufficiently on the cash for Honda to roll it over to the FK8, the technology that lastly did away with the region-specific Civics in favour of a fits-all-holes international mannequin. 

Accordingly – although you wouldn’t understand it from the colossal rear wing or the lip-snarling air intakes – Honda had additionally tried to soak up the teachings of the class-leading Mk7 Golf; the inside was purged of its swoopy sprint and sticky-out gear lever, and eventually appeared supposed for adults. It drove that method too, with a stage of consolation and usefulness that no EP3 proprietor would recognise. However this classier floor barely wanted scratching for the Sort R credentials to point out; certainly, they had been there on a regular basis in meticulous management weights, sensational seats, and a knee-jerk impatience for any alternative to downshift. 

It was some achievement. The FK8 was the final CTR inbuilt England, and the primary to be formally out there in North America. In looking for to globalise the mannequin, Honda may need opted to water it down; as an alternative, it added real bandwidth and didn’t let a rise in measurement handicap the more durable edge that Sort R clients had come to anticipate. It didn’t overcomplicate issues both, and succeeded the place the fourth-generation Megane R.S., additionally launched in 2017, failed. The FK8 didn’t want four-wheel steering or a dual-clutch gearbox to cement its class-leading standing – the truth is, its repudiation of such issues was in all probability basic to its success. 

And so it went with the FL5. Ostensibly, the automotive received even wider and longer, and since it’s what Honda assumed Individuals wished, plainer to take a look at – in the event you can name one thing with three tailpipes ‘plain’. Inside, it was much more grown-up, retaining its model-specific purple seats, however including a stage of perceived high quality hitherto by no means tried, a lot of it brushed and well-ordered and funky to the contact. It was heavier than the FK8, although solely marginally. And it carried over the K20C1 lump, albeit massaged for 330hp, and stoically retained the six-speed guide, obsessively fettled for even slicker shifts. 

On the time, Honda faffed about with the reveal prefer it was the second coming of the F40, reasonably than the introduction of an incrementally totally different sizzling hatch – although had we realised then the dimensions of the halo that now seems over the automotive, we would have understood. Now, little greater than two years on from the UK first drive, it’s tempting to shut one’s eyes the second the motive force’s door has clanked shut and silently give because of Honda for signing it off – to not point out preserving its place in a lineup that tends to treat pleasure with the identical disdainful look your nan may give to a pair of curler skates. 

It’s price mentioning that not all this pent-up appreciation relies solely on how the automotive drives. A lot else about it now exists in what looks as if a late Twentieth-century bubble. Having aspired to the earlier Golf’s meticulous structure, the Civic’s association of bodily switchgear now appears impeccable, and in stark distinction to the disappointing Mk8. The steering wheel is an ideal circle and clad in Alcantara. What screens there are don’t aspire to be the centre of your consideration; that’s the job of the superbly positioned and pleasantly stubby gear lever. And the throwback four-pot it’s mated to.

Working each hardly stops being a pleasure. Most sizzling hatches as of late, by no specific fault of their very own (save for wanting to look amenable), are likely to do A-to-B ambling so convincingly and anonymously that you simply really feel as if nothing wanting an empty runway will allow you underneath the rubberised pores and skin. Not so the Civic. Most every part that’s sensational about it – the management surfaces, the damping, the endlessly elucidated contact with the highway, the rev-hungry engine – is palpable from the primary minute to the final, and in any respect speeds. 

This a lot was evident from the beginning, and never dissimilar to the FK8. However with nearly no FWD competitors left, it’s genuinely exhausting in 2025 to not drive the FL5 like a middle-aged Tibetan monk, semi-lost to some maudlin state of bliss. The gearchange is simply too satisfying, the trip too compliant, the engine too boisterous for you to not be willingly overcome by all of it – and neither is it simple to withstand asking your self out loud why so few trendy vehicles really feel even half pretty much as good to drive. Your sense of being in management, clearly magnified by the guide however not restricted to it, is solely at odds with the sanitised options out there elsewhere. 

Amongst sizzling hatches, solely the Toyota GR Yaris holds a candle to the Civic’s acutely mechanical finesse, and honestly it doesn’t replicate the assuredness of the steering nor the fluid path modifications that outcome from participating with it. Even the occasional wrestle with a lot mid-range torque isn’t a very notable problem; as a rule, you’ll blame your self for being clumsy or else too used to imperturbable AWD techniques. Ditto the Sort R’s barely over-egged R mode, which introduces ample vertical stiffness so that you can begin nodding like a canine on a parcel shelf. So deft is the automotive in Consolation, you hardly ever want the extra rigour – so once you do come to pick it, knowingly, eyes on stalks, the nodding appears acceptable. Likewise, grinning. 

You’ll do quite a lot of that. A lot so that you simply won’t even thoughts when the anticipated gasoline vary dips alarmingly and you find yourself coasting into petrol stations for what looks as if the umpteenth time. Of the numerous issues to love about it, the truth that the FL5 turns the comfort of a modern-day sizzling hatch on its head – you completely might drive it in all places like Hoke Colburn going to the outlets, thereby sipping super-unleaded much less aggressively, however you don’t, ever – might be the one to cherish, as a result of it speaks to the tyre-scrubbing, clutch-ruining, pant-wetting, last-fiver-in-the-tank period that it alone props up. Sure, the present Civic Sort R may be very costly. However not for what it’s. Priceless could be a greater description. 

Engine: 1,996cc, four-cylinder turbo
Transmission: six-speed guide, front-wheel drive
Energy (hp): 329 @ 6,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 310 @ 2,200-4,000rpm
0-62mph: 5.4sec
Prime pace: 170mph
Weight: 1,429kg
MPG: 34.4
CO2: 186g/km
Worth: £51,905