[Civic X News]

...It just happens to be a Type R...

Now that the 10th Gens rollout is fully underway Honda trotted out the candy for the camera, running the 10th Gen Civic Type R around the Nordschleife wearing a production body for the first time.

Sure they swathed it in camo but there's no hiding the military grade rear wing, agressive-er front end (spot the intercooler peeking through), 19 inch wheels (so it seems) and big bad brembos to bring it back static.

Despite what others are claiming the pictures originate from Brian Williams and his spy shop SpiedBilde. Thankfully Temple of VTEC published SpiedBildes original text and it features a few interesting points.

Today we've caught the first shots of the 2017 Honda Civic Type R, and the Subaru WRX should be worried. We expect major changes to take place with the next-generation Honda Civic, which will come out as a 2017 model in late 2016 and will be sold globally – and all that goes for the hottest variant, too: the Civic Type R.

So far, only mules of the standard Civic had been photographed. But now a left-hand-drive production car of the new Civic Type R was photographed testing on the German Nürburgring.

The current models date back to autumn 2011 (Europe) and late 2012 (USA) – with the hot Type R having been released just a few months ago. The 10th model in the Civic history will be lighter and should feature styling similar to Honda's latest concept cars. More important, however, the new model will become a true global car sold in Japan and other Asian countries, all over Europe and in North America.

To satisfy the needs of customers world-wide, the new Civic is considerably growing in size, partly also to make customers of the Accord stay with the make after the bigger sedan and estate have been axed in various European markets. The new car will be available in a variety of body styles, including fastback, sedan, coupe and three-door hatch.

Its certainly fascinating that the Mule has been built LHD, but that may have more to do with where 10th gen production is currently at then anything else. What interests us is that he says the WRX should be worried.

Without video its impossible to tell, but has SpiedBilde noticed something about the proto CTR's and thats why they've made the WRX comparison? When the Focus RS was in development interested observers outed Fords AWD plans based on the cars behaviour mid-corner. Video will be the key determining if Honda will build the 2018 Civic Type R with AWD or not.

 

[Smartie]

wish there was a few more pictures of the rear end... we might be able to tell somewhat by how packed the rear end looks... Then again its going to have Multi-link so that would muddle visual ID somewhat...

can you see anything from the older shots??

 

[Tim]

so this is the first time a hatch was caught irl!

 

[HondaGeek]

Looks very interesting, though I prefer the exhaust on the current Type R. It is pre-production, so will see what the final model will look like.

 

[Smartie]

Looks very interesting, though I prefer the exhaust on the current Type R. It is pre-production, so will see what the final model will look like.

but don't you find it interesting that the odd tail pipes ended up showing up on the production bodied prototype as well... I would of imagined if they were just development pieces they would be gone with the 'polished' body...

 

[Civil]

I definitely think they are going to stay. They would have put more boring ones on a pre-production model, not more interesting ones.

 

[kensic]

nice! this is the 1st time a 10th gen hatch is captured.

loving the rear over hang, its hella short. i think the car overall looks really short. awesome. can't wait!

 

[Pinetop]

type R sedan...anyone....

 

[RobbJK88]

I'm wondering if the wheelbase for the hatch is shorter than the sedan... it looks that way, especially with the shorter overhangs... which makes me wonder how much shorter the coupe may end up being.

On that note, we haven't seen any recent coupe spy pics...

 

[4Tires]

That type R sedan looks niiiice.
Tried looking up recent news for the coupe and nothing is coming up besides us mentioning it.

 

[liquid squid]

it almost looks like a raked wagon... the rear bit without the wing slightly reminds me of the old WRX wagons...

 

[4Tires]

I don't see the resemblance. The wagon's rear is a lot more square looking.