It looks completely bonkers. There’s no two ways about it; that looks absolutely mental. Of course it is a concept but word is that it’s a “production ready concept” so it should be pretty damn close.
It features carbon fiber side skirts and rear diffuser, a hood scoop, 20-inch piano black alloy wheels, 245-section tires, a triple exhaust pipe (on a four cylinder?), air intakes with diamond-pattern mesh inserts, a rear spoiler that looks like a weapon straight out of a Japanese samurai anime series and what looks suspiciously like vortex generators above the rear window.
So we can definitely determine that it comes pre-riced straight from the factory.
In terms of real world performance we don’t actually have any official confirmation. All conjecture concurs though that it’ll be the existing 2.0 litre four cylinder turbo engine with the horsepower cranked up. That’s already at 305 bhp so exactly how much cranking there will be is certainly of interest. If Honda want to feature favourably in comment section arguments over numbers then even with the best torque vectoring voodoo in the world; putting 350 bhp into a front wheel drive car will make it a tree seeking missile.
All fingers point to front wheel drive, but given the accompanying news of an Si version coming along I wouldn’t mind betting a dollar that Honda drop a huge bombshell. After all, it would make a big distinction between the Si and Type R in the same way Ford have done with the ST and RS.
That’s pretty much fantasy though, news of that probably would have filtered through by now.
What isn’t fantasy it that America is finally getting an honest to goodness Type R, which makes me excited because I haven’t driven one in around 10 years and now live here in California. I don’t care if I have to beg, borrow, or steal as long as I get to drive one through some of the insane mountain and canyon roads out here.
The American Type R will be launched at the SEMA show in Las Vegas which, given the inherent OEM Fast And Furious homage, begs the question… what the hell is left for people to do with it for a show car?
