Yes there’s a rear wing, coloured brake calipers and trio of central exhaust outlets, and the fastback body benefits from a decently low and wide stance on its black (20-inch?) rims. But even allowing for the visual tricks that a colourful disguise can play, it does appear the new Type R is much more closely aligned to the rest of the new Civic range, staggeringly the 11th generation of the popular hatch.
Is that because the new one is more American than British? Previous Civics, including the Type R, have been assembled in Swindon, now sadly closed down, and it is thought this new model will hail from a Honda plant in North America.
It might wear a more sober suit than we are used to, but the 2022 Civic does promise benefits in Type R guise, chief of which is the new shell being 19 per cent torsionally stiffer than before, which just has to benefit handling. It is also a bigger car, 30mm longer of wheelbase and with wider tracks.
So what do you think? The first e-HEV petrol-electric Type R, as a sort of junior NSX, or should it stay with that charismatic, smooth and high-revving turbo VTEC engine in the nose? Petrol for us thanks, but that begs a question: how much more powerful can it get without resorting to the one thing the Type R has never had: all-wheel-drive?
We are sure to know more soon, for as Honda says, this new Type R is now ready to embark on testing at the Nordschleife. Don’t reckon they would be telling us that if they weren’t confident…