The Honda Civic Type-R is one of the most uncompromising, hardcore hot hatches money can buy. Fans love its ability to rev to 8,000rpm, coupled with bulletproof reliability.

So imagine what would happen if Honda’s motorsports wing, Mugen got hold of 20 Swindon-built Type-Rs and fed them a diet of high octane steroids.

The result is something rather special: the Civic Type-R Mugen. Stuart Milne sees if its worthy of wearing the legendary Mugen badge.

Mugen is Honda’s skunkworks; a crack team of motorsport engineers credited with building Honda’s outrageous Japanese touring cars and having a big hand in Honda’s recent F1 campaign.

Mugen – which translates as “Ultimate” in Japanese – has now given the standard Honda Civic Type-R a thorough makeover outside and underneath and created which one of the most collectable hot hatches ever.

There’s no mistaking a Type-R Mugen. All 20 are finished in Mugen’s iconic Championship White, with a tarmac-scrapping front bumper, side skirts, rear diffuser with huge exhausts and a massive wing, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Ford Escort Cosworth of the 1990s.

Unlike many big-winged cars, Honda says the Mugen kit offers an aerodynamic advantage.

Existing Type-R owners can get the look without the performance increase as the bumpers, rear wing, front grille, wheels and brakes are available through dealers.

Touring car soundtrack

It sits on 17-inch five-spoke alloys which save 7.85kgs on each corner; that might not sound much but any reduction in unsprung weight (the bits that hang outside of the suspension) has massive handling benefits. The beefier brakes are gripped by race-spec four-piston callipers, which offer awesome stopping power through the firm brake pedal, and emit the kind of squeaks at low speeds evocative of trackday specials and touring cars.

The suspension is firm – too firm for the worst of British roads – and is a completely revised set-up from the standard car with custom-made springs and dampers working in conjunction with the limited-slip diff from the Championship White edition.

This makes a real difference on the road. There’s not a hint of bodyroll, and removing the last remaining slack from the standard car means the steering feels far more direct. There’s a sense this is what the Honda Civic touring car must feel like on the move. A similar suspension setup is available as an option on the standard car.

There’s colossal grip offered from the Michelin Pilot Sport tyres, and it resists understeer very well.

The Type-R-logo’d bucket seats do a great job of holding the driver and passenger in place, but aren’t so restrictive to make covering long distances a literal pain. The seats don’t adjust low enough for some drivers, and the steering wheel doesn’t move high enough for others.

There’s the usual smattering of Mugen and Type-R livery, including an individually-numbered plaque ahead of the gearstick. For the ultimate in race car feel, Mugen offers a Track Pack, which removes the rear seat bench and fits blanking plates in their place on the quest to save weight. A trio of temperature and pressure gauges are added, alongside a data-logging system and sticky road-legal track tyres.

The interior reveals one of the car’s biggest faults – a lack of rear visibility thanks to the spoiler which runs along the middle of the rear screen. Visibility through the rearmost three-quarters is restricted too, with the sides of the two-level wing.

For many, the Civic Type-R, and particularly the Type-R Mugen is all about the engine. There’s a sense of drama with the quick-revving engine capable of reaching a stratospheric 8,600rpm, which comes alive around 6,000rpm, when most other powerplants are running out of puff.

Honda Civic Type-R Mugen gallery:


Extreme

Whether this engine suits the driver depends on where their priorities lie. The Ford Focus RS and Volkswagen Golf R offer masses of low-down torque, meaning rapid progress can be made without needing to make the engine scream – you need to wring every last rpm out of the Civic before it feels like a genuinely fast car.

The Civic Type-R Mugen is an extreme car in every sense of the word.

The standard VTEC-equipped Type-R K20A engine has seen a thorough workover, with new camshafts, a modified intake and Mugen airbox, custom exhaust and a bespoke Mugen remap employed, while revised pistons help lower the compression ratio. The result is a 20 per cent power boost to 240bhp and a 10 per cent increase in torque across the rev range.

Mugen’s baby represents the first time one of its engines has been offered for use on the road.

That means an improvement of the standard car’s 0-62mph time of 6.6 seconds and a top speed of 146mph; exactly how much is a guess because the low-volume nature of production means no official figures exist. We’d expect it to reach 62mph around half a second sooner than standard, while top speed should be nearer to 150mph.

The gearshift comes in for special praise – its mechanical precision makes it one of the most enjoyable shifts available at any price.

Whether the Civic Type-R Mugen is a bargain depends largely on how you look at it. Its £38,599 asking price is huge – £11,000 more than a Ford Focus RS and £7,000 more than a Volkswagen Golf R.

Is it worth the money? It’s a car you buy for what its pedigree and performance. Hot hatch aficionados will love it, others won’t understand it. But any petrolhead should be glad someone, somewhere is building cars like this.

Key facts:

Model tested: Honda Civic Type-R Mugen
On the road price: £38,599
Date tested: April 2010
Road tester: Stuart Milne