Return of the R

In reply to srbvmax :

This article was first published within the October 2017 issue of Grassroots Motorsports.  This issue was originally on sale in August of 2017---- hence the speculation of the autocross classing.  We post older editorial on this site frequently to give our online audience a chance to read articles that appear in the print version of GRM.  Subscribe to the print version---- and you'll get these articles in a more timely manner. 

And yes....we have checked SCCA results this year---- JG (who wrote the story)  and David actually were at the Solo Nats and have competed there for several years in a row.  

And the Civic Type R is still ugly.  

Duke - note my use of the word "faux" air holes. :)

srbvmax - That's fine, but the form doesn't follow a performance function. It might be a bit limited by the regular Civic it builds upon, but there's no reason it couldn't look better.

In reply to Joe Gearin :

Seems strange this wouldn't be updated with current information since it says published 10-24-18, but that just me. Like you saying the Type R is still ugly. Nothing is going to appeal to everyone. And as the article states, judge the vehicle on its merits.

I rented one from Turo.  I was in love but she is out of my league.  I agree why not spend your money on a wiser choice but those little Japanese cars have been calling my name for a long time......I only had 24 hours to enjoy her company.  

I can't get past the looks. Or the markup.

Everyone is arguing about the looks when the drivetrain layout makes the entire car irrelevant. 

FWD = FAIL!!! 

srbvmax said:

Everyone who is complaining about the looks can get over it. The car wasn't built to win a beauty pageant.

Funny, that is exactly what everyone is saying.

It does look a bit like a real life Homermobile.  A whole lot of WTF just sort of stuck on.  Not sure if worse or not as bad as the latest Prius.

(I clicked this thread thinking it was about a Volvo.  In the R forum on swedespeed, some kiddie winkies post every now and then talking about the "Type R" that they bought and man, they just get dogpiled.  So I guess this is the reverse?)

Nick Comstock said:

Everyone is arguing about the looks when the drivetrain layout makes the entire car irrelevant. 

FWD = FAIL!!! 

If you can't drive a FWD car fast, that just means you enter corners like a wimp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsfL4Qil2AQ

(the bit the you see from outside at 0:30 happens in-car at about the 4:45 mark, to get a proper sense of the speed)

Having a wheelbase shorter than a bus helps, too.

In reply to Miles Wilson :

It's working now. I'll delete my post to clean up the thread.

Nick Comstock said:

Everyone is arguing about the looks when the drivetrain layout makes the entire car irrelevant. 

FWD = FAIL!!! 

Yes I noticed the smilies, but come on man.  If you think FWD = Fail, you're not paying attention.  Tell me this looks like fail

You don’t fault a shark for not having wings, because it’s already awesome at sharking, which is the whole point of being a shark.

That's definitely one of the most Pasterjack lines I've ever read, and sums things up pretty well... but something did occur to me after re-reading that article a few times. If you put wings on a shark, isn't this what you get?  It may not be quite as good at sharking, though.

I kind of like the looks, in a Gundam Wing sort of way. It's rather absurd, over the top, and distinctly Japanese, but seems to fit the car's role. Even if those scoops at the bottom ought to be turned into larger funnels for the brake ducts.

Nick Comstock said:

Everyone is arguing about the looks when the drivetrain layout makes the entire car irrelevant. 

FWD = FAIL!!! 

https://youtu.be/BtkGMUY-4hs?t=84

Eh. 

srbvmax said:

Everyone who is complaining about the looks can get over it. The car wasn't built to win a beauty pageant..  

The design aspects that are seen as so ridiculous certainly aren't there for the performance improvement, so yes, they clearly thought that would increase it's "beauty".

This car has lots of silly vents, but they are functional, so your statement is far more relevant to it:

aircooled said:

The design aspects that are seen as so ridiculous certainly aren't there for the performance improvement, so yes, they clearly thought that would increase it's "beauty".

This car has lots of silly vents, but they are functional, so your statement is far more relevant to it:

Exactly!  It'd be one thing if the base model had fake vent plug covers with stamped mesh grills, but then the real R had open air tracts with functional cooling and aero improvements.  

That's not what's going on here.  They implemented fake vents with absolutely no function purely as a styling element on every performance level, and it's just sad.  I'll take an ugly functional car and admire the quirks (some of my favorite cars are this way), but this isn't ugly because it's functional.  

Saying something isn't here to win a beauty contest would work if the functional vents and aero were ugly.  This is akin to someone putting makeup on to win a beauty pageant, but being really bad at makeup.  

srbvmax said:

Everyone who is complaining about the looks can get over it. The car wasn't built to win a beauty pageant.

Neither was the DC Integra Type R that I posted.

But it somehow manages to be beautiful, functional, and fast.

And remember, it was designed by the same company.

Adrian_Thompson said:

Nick Comstock said:

Everyone is arguing about the looks when the drivetrain layout makes the entire car irrelevant. 

FWD = FAIL!!! 

Yes I noticed the smilies, but come on man.  If you think FWD = Fail, you're not paying attention.  Tell me this looks like fail

 

I'm not going to say that's a fail. But this is more better 

The only reason the Type R won D Street was the monsoon.

In reply to racerfink :

Everyone had to race in the same conditions. The driver still made it through the finish with the fastest overall time no? It’s nationals. Winning just means you were the fastest of the people who showed up those two days. 

So I just saw one on the way home last night in black.  That helps, it hides all the silly grills and such to a certain extent.  I wouldn't call it better looking in person, possibly just less comical.

Taste is subjective, of course, but all new Hondas look ugly to me, in particular the Civic, but also the Accord and Ridgeline.  The additional "functional" elements on the Type R only make the problem worse. 

Having said that, Honda is not unique in this problem...it seems like every Japanese manufacturer outside of Mazda is excited about Voltron/Gundam/Samurai ugliness. 

Adrian_Thompson said:

Nick Comstock said:

Everyone is arguing about the looks when the drivetrain layout makes the entire car irrelevant. 

FWD = FAIL!!! 

Yes I noticed the smilies, but come on man.  If you think FWD = Fail, you're not paying attention.  Tell me this looks like fail

 

They re-engineered the F2 Kit Cars into Super 1600 (read: cut displacement from 2000cc to 1600cc) because the 2 liter nonturbo front-drivers were faster than the "top class" 2 liter turbo AWD cars on tarmac and people were complaining.

By that point the AWD cars were much faster per mile than the Group B cars could ever hope to have been.  And of course Toivonen lapped the Estoril course when it was used as a rally stage fast enough to qualify at the Portuguese GP...  So by the transitive property, the Kit Cars were faster than Formula One (from a decade earlier)!

poopshovel again said:

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

Good on you for pointing out the fact that it looks better “in the flesh.” My buddy bought one, and I was really surprised how good it looks in person vs. in photos. I wish I could get over the vato-zone interior :/

Interesting. I've seen 3 or 4 already around here (people in this area have the money, and always jump on whatever the "new thing" is, it seems), but I don't think it looks good at all in person. Which is odd, because I think the Civic Si looks far better in person than in photos. 

I also see a genuine Integra Type R almost every day on my commute (yep, someone commutes in it), and every time I see it I think how great it is that Honda made one of the great FWD performance cars of all time but made its cosmetic differences relatively subtle compared to a regular Integra - at least compared to the "elite" hot hatches these days (VW Golf R excepted, since it's hard to even tell it from a regular GTI at a glance....)

srbvmax said:

Everyone who is complaining about the looks can get over it. The car wasn't built to win a beauty pageant.

 

I'm pretty certain that

1) it was designed by a bunch of "car design" people who could have just as easily designed a beautiful car without sacrificing any performance

2) most of these will spend more time at parking lot car shows (i.e. "beauty contest") than at the track.

In reply to irish44j :

The funny thing is, either VW sells a lot of R badges, or I see as many Golf Rs as GTIs.  As opposed to the only two Focus RSs that I see versus about five million FoSTs...

If we're going to focus on the looks, instead of how it manages to drive better than it's AWD competition, I'll just say that I loathe how it looks in photos, but kinda like how it looks in person. That being said I'd rather have the drivetrain and goodies in the Civic si body, or go veloster N.