Honda’s Civic Type R, which is made at its Swindon plant, has added two more trophies to its raft of accolades, winning the Readers’ Champion and Britain’s Best Affordable Drivers Car categories at the 2018 Autocar Awards.
The annual Autocar Awards celebrate the very best new and used cars and pay tribute to the engineers, designers and innovators blazing a trail in the car industry.
Coming from the world’s oldest car magazine, they are among some of the most sought after in the industry and are highly important to customers when making a decision about buying a car.
Honda UK Head of Car Phil Webb saidd: “The Civic Type R is really proving to be the benchmark for hot hatches and we are delighted to add even more highly prestigious awards to its name.
“Fans of the Type R brand used to look back to cars like the Integra Type R and original Civic Type R, but now it seems the best Type R to have is the one in our showrooms today.”
Autocar editor Mark Tisshaw shared his praises on the successful night for Honda.
“The Civic Type R signals a return to form in creating desirable performance cars for its maker, which in creating 2017’s most-improved hot hatch also produced its very best,” he said.
“Our readers share our love for the car that is simply the finest hot hatch on sale. They also rate it as the finest hot hatch yet produced which makes an especially poignant point since it’s made right here in Britain.”
Launched last year the Civic Type R has a top speed of 169mph and can do the 0-62mph sprint in just 5.7 seconds. The power comes from the 2.0-litre VTEC TURBO engine that has been optimised and refined to produce 320 PS with peak torque of 400 Nm.
Last November at the coveted BBC TopGear Magazine Car of the Year awards it picked up the ‘hot hatch of the year’ and ‘international editors’ car of the year’ before going on to claim the overall prize for car of the year.
Honda’s Swindon car plant at South Marston is the Japanese giant’s global centre for Civic production with a workforce around 4,000.
