Honda CEO Takanobu Ito has confirmed that a new Civic type R will be unveiled in 2015, alongside a new fuel-cell electric vehicle. A compact SUV is also set to join the range in the near future.
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The new Civic type R will be developed specifically for Europe and will incorporate developments learned from Honda’s experience in the world Touring car Championship. Ito wants it to be the fastest front-wheel-drive car around the Nurburgring, which indicates it’ll have to beat the Megane 265 Trophy’s time of 8 min 7.9 seconds. Honda’s UK MD Dave Hodgetts went on to tell automobile express that the new type R “will have at least 265bhp… the engineers’ target is 300bhp though.”
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Hodgetts told us that the Civic type R will begin testing at the Nurburgring in the autumn of 2013, with production set to begin in Swindon ready for an on-sale date some time in 2015. He explained that the managing and throttle action were being developed using lessons learned from Honda’s WTCC entry. Hodgetts wouldn’t draw on whether the production Type-R would get the same 1.6-litre turbo as the WTCC car but said: “it’s possible, but then anything up to a 2.0-litre turbo is possible.”