Guess Who Wins: Four Generations Civic Type Rs Lined Up For Drag

What does a hot hatch mean? The easiest way to explain this popular term is to imagine a mainstream hatchback from a big automaker, equipped with a plastic sporty body kit, bigger brakes, and powered by a boosted gasoline engine with at least four cylinders. Well, that last requirement is not mandatory (yes, we are looking at you, Ford Fiesta ST!), but we'll ignore that fact for now.

Now that you know what a hot hatch means, let's talk about the best representatives of this segment. Probably the first acronym that comes to mind is RS, which is related to Ford and Renault. GTI, known from Volkswagen and Peugeot, is also a popular name in this class. And, of course, Type R, which is unmistakably related to Honda and marks its most powerful and quickest vehicles.

What does a hot hatch mean? The easiest way to explain this popular term is to imagine a mainstream hatchback from a big automaker, equipped with a plastic sporty body kit, bigger brakes, and powered by a boosted gasoline engine with at least four cylinders. Well, that last requirement is not mandatory (yes, we are looking at you, Ford Fiesta ST!), but we'll ignore that fact for now.

Now that you know what a hot hatch means, let's talk about the best representatives of this segment. Probably the first acronym that comes to mind is RS, which is related to Ford and Renault. GTI, known from Volkswagen and Peugeot, is also a popular name in this class. And, of course, Type R, which is unmistakably related to Honda and marks its most powerful and quickest vehicles.

Now in its fifth generation, the Civic Type R is one of the best performance vehicles with front-wheel drive today. It builds on the success of its predecessors and Honda’s heritage in developing hot hatches, but is it really quicker than the previous generations?

A very interesting video, uploaded on YouTube by CarWow, puts four generations Civic Type Rs (plus one Civic Mugen) on the drag strip, the missing one is only the first-gen model (on EK9 chassis), but it was never officially available in the United Kingdom, where the guys from the channel are actually located.

As one would expect, it’s a pretty close battle – after all, all of the vehicles have more than 200 horsepower (149 kilowatts) on tap and are pretty capable in accelerating from standstill. But which one is the quickest – is it the newest? Well, we won’t spoil it for you, just make sure to watch the whole video, as the hatches are also compared on track.