New Honda Civic Type R lands in Mzansi with a R979,000 price

The new Honda Civic Type R has arrived in South Africa with fiery performance and an eye-opening price of R979,000.

TimesLIVE is attending the Type R's launch in Cape Town this week and our driving impressions will appear soon, but in the meantime here in a nutshell is what you need to know about Honda's new hot hatch.

There has been a power increase in the 2.0l four-cylinder petrol turbo engine, from 228kW and 400Nm to 235kW and 420Nm. As before the grunt is sent to the front wheels via a six-speed manual transmission.

Based on the 11th-generation Civic, the Japanese hot hatch has an aggressive exterior that, albeit more subdued than its recent predecessors, is more extroverted than European rivals such as the Volkswagen Golf GTI.

Lower and wider than the regular Civic, the Type R has pumped out wheel arches that house 19-inch matt black alloy wheels wearing 265/30 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres.

The interior is dominated by red, including the body-hugging sports seats, and cabin highlights include a digital instrument cluster and a 9.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system with a Honda LogR data logger system.

Earlier this month, the car set a new lap record for a front-wheel-drive car at the Nürburgring Nordschleife with a time of 7 minutes 44.881 seconds.

The Brembo braking system and radiator have been upgraded to better deal with sustained high-performance use, and the triple-exhaust design offers enhanced sound modulation.

The car is able to zoom from 0-100km/h in 5.4 seconds and reach a top speed of 275km/h.

The number that stands out most is the price, which nudges close to the R1m mark and is R121,500 higher than the outgoing Civic Type R. It makes the car more expensive than rivals such as the Renault Megane RS300 Trophy (R949,999), Hyundai i30N (R795,900) — which are also front-wheel-drives — and the all-wheel drive Volkswagen Golf R (R912,800).

Honda says 60 units have been allocated to South Africa and there are already reportedly 25 pre-orders.