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“We’ve missed the Type R”: will the hot Civic will make younger motorists re-think their opinion of Honda?

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Author: | Updated: 10 Jun 2015 14:24

Every single car in the Honda UK range will be replaced this year. Drastic action and a sure sign that Honda knows its current cars aren’t up to scratch.

The numbers speak for themselves. In 2014, Honda shifted 53,544 units in the UK, a sixth of what Ford managed that year and 3.8% fewer than the year before.

Every other mainstream volume car seller saw growth in 2014 and although the Takata airbag crisis hasn’t helped Honda’s sales, it’s been long apparent that something must plug the leak.

Thankfully, so far, efforts to turn around fortunes have been positive. 2012’s ninth generation Civic was decent enough as a standalone product but when facing merciless competition like the VW Golf and Ford Focus, it was outpriced and outclassed. A swift refresh has improved driving dynamics and addressed its pricing. It's still brill and time will tell if it's worked to win over motorists.

The CR-V, again a competitive product, has also been spruced-up with improvements in all the key areas, if James Fossdyke is to be believed. The ever-dependable Jazz continues to sell well but we'll get an all new model this summer anyway. Summer will also see Honda re-enter the ever-bulging compact SUV arena with the revived HR-V. That leaves just the aging Accord as the only Honda car not to be carried into 2016, axed due to UK’s growing preference for crossover SUVs.

This type of dramatic overhaul was clearly necessary but there’s one car which Honda deems hugely important for its brand image – the Civic Type R.

Red Honda Civic Type R front on country lane

Check out what we thought of the Civic Type R on the road

Honda UK’s Head of Cars Leon BrannanHonda UK’s Head of Cars Leon Brannan [pictured] is glad to see it back.

“Post-recession, we just hunkered down and focussed on our core model volume,” he recalls. “Type R’s a wonderful car and it’s a shame it had to go. We missed it undoubtedly but it’s back now.”

Its return isn’t undervalued either: “The Type R is hugely important for our brand. Civic and CR-V are our two most important products and our number one priorities, no question, but what the Type R does is sit above the brand and feeds credibility into the brand.”

Philip Crossman, Managing Director of Honda UK [pictured below], believes the 310PS ‘race car for the road’ will provide a route into people’s lives.

“It’ll get people who haven’t thought a Honda, thinking about a Honda again. It opens up a channel for us,” he says.

Leon believes the Type R will widen Honda’s appeal to a younger crowd too: “The Civic is actually quite young anyway. Of all of our products it’s probably the youngest with the average age of buyers being 46-47.

Philip Crossman - Honda UK Managing Director“The NSX [550bhp hybrid supercar, due late 2015] is a beautiful thing but for most customers, it’s an aspirational thing. The Type R meanwhile is much more attainable and most people can spend £300 a month on a car.

“The market for a car this powerful isn’t huge and peaked at around 30,000 units a year. It’s now around 26,000, it’s not massive, but anything around the 200PS mark is much bigger.”

“I’m tempted to get one myself,” jokes Crossman. “The last Type R reduced the average age of Honda customers by 10 years, almost overnight, and it’s very affordable with PCPs at £300 a month after a £3,000 deposit.” Don’t panic, contract hire rates are coming, people.

Leon even reckons the Type R has some company car appeal too, predicting that as many as one in ten sales coming from fleets.

ST-eering clear

The UK is the biggest market for hot hatches but British motorists are also majorly fond of superminis, so why compete at the higher end with the Golf Rs of the world when they could’ve poached some of Ford’s Fiesta ST sales? After all, the Ford Fiesta has been Britain’s best-selling car since 2009, so wouldn’t a hot supermini have been a more profitable venture than a larger more expensive C-segment scorcher?

After murmurings of agreement from Brannan, Crossman responds: “It made sense to use the Civic because it’s at the heart of the company, it’s our longest serving car.

“The next Civic will be a global car too and with £2.2bn invested in the Swindon factory, the Type R serves as a great statement of the company’s intent.”

White Honda Civic Type R in Bratislava

Patience

So you’re sold on the idea of having a Type R on your drive. Great, now you wait.

“We’re pretty much sold out until Christmas and there’s a lead time of about six to eight months,” reveals Crossman. “Type R has got a hard-core fanbase, so we’ve already had 200 pre-orders.”

“Obviously they haven’t seen the car yet,” adds Leon. “They haven’t driven it so we’ve wrote to those buyers to invite them to have their first test drive of the Type R up the hill at Goodwood [Festival of Speed] with one of our racing drivers. We’ve had a huge response to that.”

For 2015, Leon stressed that Type R registrations won’t be huge as full scale production won’t begin until July and with an obligation to supply every Honda UK dealer with a Type R demo car, only 600-700 Type Rs could reach UK roads this year.

What about the prospect of the Civic Type R being offered as a Tourer estate. “No comment”; that’s a ‘probably yes, let’s see how this goes first’ then.

As our sit-down time draws to an end, I roll out the killer question; if you were a biscuit, what would you be and why?

Philip Crossman: “I’d be a chocolate bourbon. Because it’s slender, stylish, and sophisticated.”

Well handled, sir. Thank you and good night.

Honda Civic Type R boot lid emblem red

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