By Michael Booth
Would suit:
Stirling Moss.
Price:
£17 600 (about R251 000).
Performance:
233km/h, 0-100km/h in 6.6sec.
Combined fuel consumption:
9.2litres/100km.
Honda is beset by old farts and wants to get rid of them. That's hardly surprising; over-reliance on grey money was a major element in the demise of Rover and no car company wants to be lumbered with an ageing demographic - it's not good for either long-term sales or one's image.
The trouble is, you can't actually ban elderly people from your showrooms; aside from the human-rights issues, it would be a public relations disaster... what if Helen Mirren rolled up with the deposit for a Jazz?
So Honda tried a different approach to rid itself of its plague of pesky pensioners. It designed a car that's outlandishly adolescent and preposterously futuristic in the hope - vain, it turns out - that senior citizens would throw their tartan rugs in the air in disgust and buzz off to their nearest Opel dealer instead.
Unfortunately, nobody told the oldies they weren't wanted at Honda so you still see them - in the UK, at least - driving around in their ridiculous new Civics, liver-spotted knuckles framed by wisps of white hair just visible above the steering wheels, trailing processions of frustrated road users in their 40km/h wake as they scatter pedestrians while rummaging for boiled sweets in the glove compartment.
The elderly are a loyal bunch, it seems; merely styling your car to look like a character from Toy Story was never going to be enough to deter them, especially those with bifocals.
Enter the Civic Type R. It's supposed to be the hooligan of the Honda range with its black mesh grille, 18" alloys and body kit.
It has a wonderfully free-revving, easy-breathing VTEC engine that begs you to snickety-snack up and down the six-speed gearbox to keep it on song, which it does to its own electrifying, raspy tune, right up until an astonishing 8000rpm.
(I remember when 8000rpm was the preserve of Lamborghinis - and most of them only managed it once before going bang).
It really is a terrific car but dig a little deeper and you can't help but wonder if Honda really does want to ditch its antediluvian demographic after all.
Might there still be some residual affection for its prime market? Could it be that Honda simply can't help designing cars with mom's bridge club in mind? Or is it trying to please its 73-year-old president Takeo Fukui?
Quieter, more refined
You see, the new Type R is a quieter, more refined and user-friendly machine than the previous one. It only produces 0.7kW more than the standard model and Honda has replaced the old car's independent rear suspension - a costly but pretty much essential hot-hatch component these days - with a torsion beam set-up originally refined by Ben Hur's pit crew.
The ride is comfy and mature, soaking up surface bumps with a pleasing springiness; the steering isn't nearly as much of a handful as it can be in other lightw, front-wheel drive performance cars and - most telling of all - the front seats are suspiciously high.
It's almost as if... no, it can't be! Has Honda really designed the world's first sports hatch for the Salusa set? - The Independent, London