Civic Type R-GT Racer Will Be Heavily Influenced by Concept
Civic Type R-GT concept shown earlier this year is an accurate preview of the forthcoming racer, Honda says.
Back in January, Honda revealed a truly intriguing concept dubbed the Civic Type R-GT at the Tokyo Auto Salon, a car that previews its forthcoming entry into the Japanese Super GT Championship. The automaker is set to replace the now-discontinued NSX-GT with a red hot version of the road-going sedan, which is an interesting switch indeed – going from a proper supercar to a gussied-up economy sedan. While we await the official debut of the Civic Type R-GT racer, however, it seems as if we’ve already gotten a pretty good look at what to expect from the concept, according to Motorsport.
“We haven’t taken delivery of the monocoque yet, we’re still waiting for that, but we’ve finalized the shape of the car with CAD,” said Honda Super GT head of car development Tomohiro Onishi. “It will match the silhouette [that was shown at the Auto Salon]; outside the areas that are open for aerodynamic development I think there will be no changes. The length and width were already scaled for the car shown at the Auto Salon. I’m looking forward to seeing how the final details, such as the cooling inlets and flick box, will turn out. But compared to previous years, there are fewer areas open for development, so I think it’s fair to assume it will look pretty similar to what we showed.”
As one might imagine, making the switch from a two-door supercar to a four-door model comes with its own set of challenges, particularly since the NSX-GT is known for producing copious amounts of downforce. “It’s not a case of talking simply about it being an advantage or disadvantage, there are good points and bad ones,” Onishi said. “But that was also the case with the NSX, so we will do our best to make up for the bad points with our development.”
Regardless, the racing version of the Civic Type R certainly won’t bear much resemblance to its road-going brethren underneath that aerodynamic body. Rather, it will ride on a carbon monocoque chassis with a turbocharged 2.0-liter four cylinder driving the rear wheels, with more than 650 horsepower on tap.
Photos: Honda
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