The Honda Civic Type-R is one of the most exciting cars on the market and it’s a hot hatch that offers you an insane amount of power out of a four-cylinder engine that makes driving a lot of fun. This is a car that has set the record for FWD models at Nurburgring to be a car that grabbed our attention and has never let it go since it came to the market. This car with 306 horsepower is one that used a manual transmission which is impressive and amazing and that’s the only way you can have this car.
Why is Honda being so stingy with the Civic Type-R? It feels like the fact the company won’t offer us an automatic transmission under the hood to be paired with the engine feels like they are turning their back on those of use that would want to enjoy driving this car with an automatic. Some people can’t drive a manual transmission at all and would want to make this a car that can be used on a daily basis. What makes Honda choose not to put an automatic in this car and make it a powerful and performance-minded automatic transmission car?
There is a single simple reason for this car only being offered with a manual transmission; weight. The weight of an automatic is much greater than a manual. As a car that’s already a lightweight build with a heavy engine over the front wheels that puts the weight forward, adding an automatic would make this car too heavy, especially up front. One reason this car is so quick and able to tear up the track as fast as it can is that this car has an excellent balance of weight from front to back.
Honda did try to add a couple different transmission options with a dual-clutch automatic which would have been the right choice with a performance engine, but it wasn’t able to operate as well as the manual and all because of the added weight. In order to keep this car as balanced as possible, the only option that could be used for this car was the one that we eventually received in an excellent six-speed manual transmission.
For anyone who wants to drive the Honda Civic Type-R that can’t drive a manual transmission car right now, my advice would be to learn how. There won’t be an automatic added to the Type-R and that should make some driving purists happy to learn and know the manual will be protected in this record-setting hot hatch that we love to see and love to drive.
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