Geneva show: Honda's long-awaited Civic Type R uncovered

HONDA has provided a glimpse of its wild-winged new-generation Civic Type R ahead of its debut in concept form at next month's Geneva motor show.

Due to go into showrooms in 2015 – including dealerships in Australia – the new British-built turbocharged VTEC five-door hatch is being described by its developers as a “racing car for the road”.

The single image released overnight shows a huge rear wing rising from the back of the Civic, with four massive exhaust pipe tips protruding from a rear diffuser.

Honda says in its accompanying press release that the vehicle to be shown at Geneva will “provide the styling direction for the exterior design of the highly-anticipated production version”.

In other words, this ambitious claim might yet be toned down for the road when it finally goes on sale.

For the first time, the Type R is expected to get a turbocharger on its VTEC engine, and although Honda has not provided any powertrain details for the Geneva concept, a prototype driven by GoAuto in Japan last year packed a 2.0-litre engine with “more than” 206kW of power and 400Nm of torque. These figures are 25 per cent and 50 per cent greater than the previous model that was dispatched to the car graveyard in 2010.

Honda has said it is engineering the new Type R to be the fastest front-wheel-drive hot hatch around the Nurburgring, putting traditional European hatchback manufacturers such as Renault, Volkswagen and Ford on notice.

Honda has traditionally shunned forced induction in its production engines, but finally is set to bite the bullet and bring its Type R up to speed – and then some – with the Renault Megane RS, Ford Focus ST and VW Golf GTI.