Honda’s Civic Type R bombshell at the New York Auto Show was met with a lot of excitement, but according to a new report, it might be a while before we see the hotted-up Civic in North America.
John Mendel, executive vice president of Honda’s U.S. division, told AutoGuide the next-generation Civic Type R will likely arrive on our shores as a 2018 model – even though he hopes it arrives sooner. Not only that, the Type R we’re going to see in North America will probably be more or less identical to the European-spec model.
“As you go to global development processes, the differneces from market to market in terms of crash and requirements start to converge,” he said. “So you don’t have a vehicle developed for one market that doesn’t meet the standards of another market. As you are able to commonize all those things around the world, and a U.S.-led development for this vehicle, we kind of spec’d it through the higher standards.”
The one-size-fits-all move certainly makes sense, especially considering we’re already destined to receive the Civic hatchback, which is assembled at Honda’s assembly plant in Swindon, U.K.
