Honda Civic Type R Mk3 Mugen versus Audi R8 V10

There is one thing that the R8 has more of but in this instance doesn’t need: kilograms. The Audi weighs 1625kg to the Mugen’s 1233kg. So although it still has a massive power-to-weight advantage – 319bhp per tonne versus 194 – the R8’s extra weight might just be what prevents it from disappearing over the horizon.

And that’s before you so much as mention the more relevant issue of how fast you are prepared to drive a car like the R8 on the public road.

Fact is, the R8 has so much acceleration that the occasions on which you can use all, or even half, of its potential are exceedingly rare indeed. In a straight line it will out-accelerate the Mugen in third gear, even if the Honda is in the heart of its rev range in second gear. Put the R8 in second gear and it will rocket away from the Mugen, simple as that.

Except that on the public road, of course, nothing is ever as simple as that. For starters, there’s the small matter of your driving licence to consider. And then there’s your conscience to bear in mind, other road users (some of whom may not be paying attention as you come hurtling towards them across a blind brow), plus the inevitable army of caravans, tractors and/or sheep that may lurch in your direction at 
any given moment.

The only way you can account for the myriad of unpredictables that come at you on the open road, in other words, is to operate well within your own limits and those of the car you are driving. And that’s a far easier thing to do in the Honda than it is in the R8.

Why? Because in the R8 it’s so easy to get carried away and end up travelling far too fast for the conditions that the only way to be sure that you are doing the right thing – the safe thing – is to put a lot less effort into your actions in the first place and simply drive a lot less hard. Which means the Honda, in theory, might just be able to keep up.

Broadly speaking, that’s precisely how it turned out in Wales. We went to our favourite roads, with road tester Jamie Corstorphine driving the Audi first while 
I drove the Civic, and for most of the 
time I could keep up. When we swapped cars and did the same thing in reverse, it was exactly the same result: whoever was 
in front – and no matter which car they 
were driving – the person following could always keep up.

And that’s the difference, in the end, between having a brain between your ears and an excess of grip and horsepower beneath your backside. On the public road, the brain will usually win, which means the leading driver – unless he or she is either stupid or worryingly fearless – will always be at a disadvantage. And in this case not even an extra 279bhp could compensate for that crucial disadvantage.

Maybe the most interesting thing we discovered, however, was that after a day 
at the wheel of both cars, Jamie and I 
agreed that we enjoyed driving the Mugen more over those roads. And I’m being entirely straight when I say that. There’s no caveat, in other words: the Honda was simply more fun, more agile, less intimidating and a lot easier to get close to its limits than the oh-no-tell-me-I-haven’t-overcooked-it R8.

No question that on a track the Audi would have destroyed the Mugen, but track driving and fast, responsible road driving are two entirely different things. On a track you can take calculated risks, and if you’re skilled enough you can start to exploit the way an R8 handles to make it go a lot faster.

You can do things like turn in on a trailing throttle to eradicate its natural tendency 
to understeer; you can turn the ESP system off and get on the throttle early out of ◊ 
∆ slow corners, again to dial out the understeer. And you can use every last ounce of its thundering straight-line performance, safe in the knowledge that nothing will be coming the other way.

On a circuit, only the R8’s infuriating open-gate six-speed manual gearbox and its peculiarly jumpy brakes would hamper your progress, and it would obliterate 
the Civic as a result. But on the road it’s 
not like that at all.

On the road, the Mugen’s smaller dimensions, relative lack of weight, extra agility and far less lively tail end allow you to get much closer to what it can do ultimately, on a track, than you can in the R8. Partly that’s because your conscience screams at you to be sensible in the R8 far louder than it does when driving the Civic. And partly it’s because the Mugen is that much more friendly and predictable in the way it reacts on or near its limit.