The Holy Grail Of Honda Civics Comes With A Holy-Moly $127,000 Price

JDM Honda Civic Type R sedan: one of the best cars I’ve ever driven. That was focus of a story I recently wrote explaining what made the Japanese-market sedan so much more special than the CTR hatch sold in Europe at the same time.

What I didn’t mention in that story is that a small number of those FD2 Civic sedans were turned into something even wilder. It was called the Mugen RR, and one has just cropped up for sale at UK-based Japanese import specialist Torque GT. You’re going to need deep pockets to bring it home, however. This peachy 32,900-mile car is up for a cool £89,995 ($126,800).

The Best Cars I’ve Driven #2: FD2 Honda Civic Type R Sedan

You might be wondering why anyone would spend lightly-used Audi R8 V10 money on a hotted-up rental car, so let’s dig into some of the juicy details. Starting with the fact that it comes from Mugen, the tuning and motorsports company owned by Hirotoshi Honda, son of Soichiro Honda, the man who put the big H on the automotive map.

Mugen’s engineers fitted the K20 2.0-liter engine with hotter cams, a new intake and exhaust system, and remapped the fuelling and ignition to suit, pushing power from 222 hp to 237 hp. That might not sound like much of an improvement, but the Mugen revs harder, and sounds much tougher thanks to the carbon airbox.

Credit: Torque GT (notice the KPGC10 GT-R in the background)

And factor in the huge 165kg (364 lb) reduction in weight that brings the RR in at just 1095 kg (2414 lb), and that 15 hp increase is going to feel like much more. The front bumper, air intakes, bonnet vents, gorgeous bucket seats and many more components are made from carbon fiber. And completing the package there’s a multi-position rear wing, plus uprated suspension and big brakes hiding behind 18-inch forged wheels.

So the Mugen RR is arguably the ultimate ‘official’ naturally aspirated Civic Type R, and maybe one of the greatest Honda road cars of all time. But maybe you’re still struggling with that price. Which is where the tiny 300-unit production run comes in. These things seldom come up for sale, so if you pass on this one, you might be waiting a while to bag another.