[mpeastend]

The car's styling is "busy" but it grows on you. I've always had Civics as reliable daily drivers & recently had to get a new one (Si) because someone crashed into mine. Great performance bang for your $25k buck & it made me want more. So I started looking at the Type R but was dismayed to find that dealers are absolute *****heads when it comes to this car. In my area it's hard to find the car without a huge markup or loaded with all kinds of bloated dealer add-ons. I even offered $1500 over MSRP (against every fiber of my being) and was laughed out of the dealership I had recently bought the Si from. You're up against a huge following of Type R fanatics due to the car not being available here until 2017 and then just as things were calming down with covid & the economy, they add some improvements, colors, etc and now the demand is going up again. Sigh. It's a really great car, especially for the money. The shifter/tranny it shares with the Si is amazing...snick, snick, snick! There are certainly issues with rear visibility, some weird blind spots and aggravating poor pedal positioning for heel & toe...I guess that's why they have the autoblipper standard in the car. The Si doesn't get that so I had to buy a bracket to move the gas pedal (all fly-by-wire so no big deal) but it doesn't completely solve the problem, I may have to modify the gas pedal a little. Without dealer markups, the car is an amazing performance bargain for the price & there is little to compare it to at it's price. The WRX Sti has always been considered somewhat unrefined and clunky & it, the Ford & VW offerings are all more expensive. Everyone gushes about the engineering that went into the car, the lack of torque steer, etc. I can imagine how much fun my Si would be with 100 more hp. BTW Si's are a steal...they sit on lots forever because of the manual tranny. Don't know if that changed now that Honda says it's discontinuing the coupe bodystyle and going all-in on a 4 door Civic lineup. If you can find a Type R at MSRP, buy it! You may not like the magnet-through-the-parts-bin look but the handling, performance and shifter will make you smile. PS: there are sites that list dealers that don't try to rape you such as civicx.com. You may have to travel for it but a reasonably priced Type R is possible.