As we head towards the end of 2023, we’re seeing more and more car award bodies recognizing some of the best rides to come out this year. Of course, Top Gear is one of them, and our mother ship in England has just announced several of its ‘Car of the Year’ picks.
One category is Performance Car of the Year, and the folks from the UK have chosen the Honda Civic Type R as this year’s winner. Why did it win, you ask? We’ll let TG UK’s associate editor, Tom Ford, explain.
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“The Civic Type R is a car that can perform on your favorite back road any day of the week, and still put a smile on your face on the occasional weekend track day. It’s not about a perfect road and a vanishingly small operating window of opportunity, but a performance car whose adrenaline is closer to the surface, more accessible, and in many ways, more real. And that’s why the Honda Civic Type R is the Top Gear Performance Car of the Year; not because it’s the fastest, but because it’s the car that puts a smile on your face every time you drive it.”
Locally, we’ve had the pleasure of driving the all-new Honda Civic Type R on the track and on the road. Yes, there are faster cars, and yes, there are those that can drift for miles thanks to rear wheel drive. But what the Type R offers is an almost no-compromise performance car experience. It’s light and easy to drive when you’re driving it like a, well, Civic, but it can also pull off great moves on the track. The best part is, its competence doesn’t make it sterile and boring. Not one bit.
The new-generation Honda Civic Type R is powered by the familiar 2.0-liter i-VTEC turbo engine, just like its predecessor. It packs 315hp (320PS) and 420Nm of torque and shifts with an honest to goodness short-throw six-speed manual.
Despite just having the front wheels put down the power, Honda found a way to make it work, never feeling overwhelmed by those big numbers. Oh, and you can have a little fun with it when you lift the throttle mid-corner. It’s dynamic, but obedient, yet there's never dull moment behind the wheel.
It’s one of the best cars of 2023, and certainly an award well deserved.
