Honda Civic Type R Tangles On Track With VW GTI Clubsport
After hot laps at the famous Hockenheimring GP course, these hot hatches are evenly matched.
Back in the good old days, brand loyalty meant a lot more in the car community than it does now. Many vicious forum battles were fought over bench-racing cars from various manufacturers against each other. Somehow, the brand you loved always was number one, and it was your job to convince the other guys that you were right. Funny how that works.
In this day and age, there are so few fun cars left that we’ve softened our stance quite a bit. This video, from German publication Sport Auto, pits the Honda Civic Type R against the VW Golf GTI Clubsport.
Years ago, we would have skipped straight to the end to see just how hard the clearly superior Honda was to the Volkswagen. In a world filled with egg-shaped crossovers and dull electrified boxes, we’re just happy that there’s more than one hot hatch left to choose from. So, just how good is that GTI Clubsport, anyway?
Faster Than Ever
We’ll readily admit that the GTI sounds fantastic, and in our experience, the DSG transmission rips off shifts with speed and an authority. That said, we’d still prefer to shift our own gears. It may not be quite as fast, but it sure is more fun to us. As it turns out, though, it was plenty fast enough.
Both cars performed admirably on the Hockenheimring GP course. However, at the conclusion of testing, the Honda and the Volkswagen were neck and neck around the 2.8 mile course. The Honda Civic Type R delivered a time of 2:02.8 seconds, while the Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport turned in a nearly identical 2:02.7 second lap time.
It’s incredible that these two cars could be so similar despite being so different. It’s clear that Honda engineers set their sights on the Volkswagen, while the Volkswagen engineers set their sights on Honda.
Call us crazy, but we hope that the engineers at Volkswagen have something special up their sleeve for 2022. Why? It’s simple – if they do, then Honda will have to build an even hotter Civic Type R. Everyone wins.
Join the Honda-Tech forums now!
