2017 Honda Civic vs Subaru Impreza

What's the difference?

It’s taken a while to get here, and its wild looks may put some people off, but make no mistake, the Type R fits in perfectly with the current crop of high-performance hot hatches you can buy now, and those that are coming our way.

It’s not perfect, but what is most striking after our first try is just how well Honda has balanced performance against real-world requirements. It’s a real Type R, all right.

I drove the new Impreza in January and came away hugely... um... impressed. It's so much better than the old one inside and out. Even the transmission passes muster and I can't stand CVT autos. The Impreza remains individualistic (although the sedan isn't very pretty) and characterful but without the dodgy interiors and creaking undercarriage.

Is it enough to tempt you out of its rivals? Possibly - what's really changed is that now it is actually a contender rather than 'one for the fans'. Quiet, composed, good value and with a comfortable new interior, it certainly won me over. If only it were a bit quicker...

‘Interesting’ is the word to describe the absolutely overt nature of the Civic Type R exterior. It looks like Speed Racer’s Mach 5 that’s been attacked by a group of 10-year-old car fiends with access to fibreglass moulds, such is the intensity of the bumps, lumps, swoops and curves that festoon this wild machine.

It’s 78mm wider than a stock Civic and 38mm wider, too, which comes across when the Type R hits the road.

While the front end is reasonably low key, things get loose and wild around the sides and back, with a World Time Attack-esque rear wing, exaggerated side skirts and overfenders and not two, but three exhaust outlets. The centre pipe, by the way, is there to increase noise levels.

This reviewer reckons it looks pretty awesome, offering a genuine road presence that puts even the overt Focus RS in the shade. Others, though, aren’t as sold, suggesting the car’s mature performance is spoiled by the street-racer vibe.

Inside is a similar story, with a red-themed trim spreading across the dash and steering wheel, and onto the deeply sculpted sports seats –custom-made Honda units that save 5kg each over the Recaros in the previous Type R – and even around the air vents.

In terms of design, the sedan is arguably not as successful as the hatch. All is well up front but once you reach the back, the proportions get a bit odd - the boot seems too high and the chassis appears raked like a Red Bull F1 car (trick of the eye - it isn't), but it's still a reasonably clean design.

The old Impreza had bits everywhere and, to put it politely, was very unappealing to look at. If you've got a few hundred bucks and are worried about the looks, chuck on the 18s or spend some money on STi accessories.

The rear end is better suited to Japanese plates and the lights look a bit squiffy, but after the old one, anything that's better will do. Then again, Subaru's target market isn't led by style, so it's not a deal-breaker.

The cabin's biggest appeal is the jump in quality. There wasn't a lot wrong with the old Impreza's interior, it was just clothed in low-rent plastic panels and was a bit blah. While the trim is cloth, it's distinguished by some vaguely racy texturing to make the seats look more shapely, a bit Audi-like, which is a nice effect.

The materials are a big step up and the construction a bit more thoughtful, although the steering wheel still has way too many buttons and switches.

The driver’s seat is the focus of the Civic, and from there it’s fantastic. The chunky steering wheel is dimpled to cup fingers and thumb, the narrow-gated shifter falls easily to hand and the deep buckets are both supportive and comfortable… although they could be mounted even lower in the car.

The rear offers a surprising amount of head room, given the shape of the car, but it needs the cooperation of the front-seat passengers to give back seaters enough knee and foot room. There are ISOFIX points for two seats, as well.

Two cup holders are part of an oddly shaped lidless bin between the front seats, and bottles will fit in all four doors. Rear seaters miss out on cupholders and USB points, although there is one in the centre bin that can be used if needed.

At 414 litres, the boot area is the same as the civilian Civic's, and 764 litres with the seats down, even despite the extra exhaust and suspension gubbins under the floor. The reason? No room for even a space-saver spare, and a can of sealant is your only get-out-of-jail card.

The biggest letdown in a practicality sense is the multimedia system – it’s well off the pace when compared to other products in the segment. It’s not intuitive, the buttons are too small, there are far too many menus and its performance during our test was suboptimal at best.

The Impreza doesn't feel like a small car inside. I can easily fit behind my own driving position, with tons of room to spare (I'm 180cm tall), so lankier rear occupants will be fairly comfortable if a little tight for headroom once passing about 185cm.

Front and rear passengers each get a pair of cupholders and small bottle holders in each door. The centre console has a litre or so worth of storage with two USB ports to go with the two further ports in a storage slot under the climate controls.

Boot space is a generous 460 litres, besting the class-leading Mazda3, but Civic and Elantra are bigger still.

The L is the second-tier offering in the Impreza range, starting at $27,980 for the sedan and $28,180 for the hatch. We had the sedan in a fetching silver that won't cost you a single extra dollarydoo, which is an excellent start.

Standard are 17-inch wheels, a six-speaker stereo, dual-zone climate control, 'EyeSight' safety package, reversing camera, cloth interior, cruise control (with distance control), keyless start, remote central locking, power mirrors, power windows all around and space saver spare.

The six-speaker stereo is powered by Subaru's 'Starlink' media system, which has come along nicely in this newer version. The 8.0-inch screen is bright and clear (too bright at night, even with auto-brightness on), the system also features Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, matching the i30 and beating the Mazda3 on that particular score. It's a bit slow to respond, though, which might get a bit tired.

Factory options? None.

Honda’s K20C1 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine was revealed to the world in 2013, before hitting the road in 2015 under the bonnet of the fourth-generation Civic Type R (we didn’t get that one in Australia).

The company is best known for its nat-atmo shriekers, but it’s hard to argue with a 400Nm torque curve that kicks in between 2500 and 4500rpm.

Its 228kW output is actually slightly down on overseas numbers, thanks to a retune for 95 RON fuel. Honda says its 5.7-second 0-100km/h time is the same, despite the power drop.

Only one gearbox is offered – an uprated version of the regular Civic’s six-speed manual, with marginally taller third, fourth and fifth gears, a lightened flywheel on one end and a helical LSD at the other. Clutch feel is excellent, and the shift action is tight and crisp.

Subaru (thankfully) persists with the gravelly four-cylinder 'boxer' engine and all-wheel drive. The 2.0-litre unit serves up 115kW/196Nm, which is about right for the segment, if a little down on its rivals for torque.

All four wheels are turned through Subaru's Lineartronic CVT, which has a torque converter to help curb the worst excesses of CVT-itis.

Honda rates the Civic Type R’s combined fuel economy rating at 8.8 litres per 100km. After a 240km dash across Tasmania, we recorded a dash-indicated figure of a surprisingly low 9.6 L/100km.

It has a 47-litre fuel tank, it’s been tuned to accept 95 octane fuel. Oh, and it won’t gain back that missing power by using 98 octane, sadly.

Subaru's claimed combined cycle figure is 6.6L/100km. A long, startlingly uninterrupted run along Sydney's M2 delivered an indicated 4.8L/100km before traffic pushed it up to 8.4L/100km for the week, not a bad effort really.

The Impreza's range is slightly hampered by a small-ish 50-litre tank.

At a shade under 1400kg (about 70kg heavier than a regular Civic RS), the fifth-gen Type R is about 350kg heavier than the 1997 Civic Type R… but it’s a handy 100kW more powerful at 228kW, not to mention 250Nm to the good at 400Nm.

It’s not a porker by hot-hatch standards, though, and that torque piles in hot and strong right around 3000rpm. It makes for a very different driving experience than previous Type Rs, which relied on screamingly high revs to make power.

The Civic’s platform was always designed around the eventual arrival of a Type R, and a multilink rear end makes a welcome return to the Type R. Combined with a long wheelbase for a hatch, as well as specially designed front suspension that limits torque steer and tramlining, the Civic Type R is a faithful and willing companion, rather than an outright lunatic.

The sheer amount of physical grip from huge 245mm wide tyres makes for eye-opening corner-entry speeds, and the rear end simply hunkers down and plays along.

The car has three drive modes – Comfort, Sport and R+ - which adjust all sorts of parameters including throttle sensitivity, steering weight and the stiffness of the dampers.

To be honest, we didn’t notice a great deal of difference between the top two modes, but the Comfort setting gave the Type R a genuinely civil edge, spoiled only by excessive tyre and wind roar at even moderate speeds.

A blast around Baskerville circuit in Tasmania revealed more of the Type R’s cooperative, neutral nature.

It would have been nice to see an Individual mode, giving the driver the option, for example, to wind the dampers down to Comfort for more grip in rougher conditions, but keep the powertrain in Sport.

A blast around Baskerville circuit in Tasmania revealed more of the Type R’s cooperative, neutral nature and the depths of that amazing front-end grip.

Big four-piston Brembo brakes on 350mm hatted front rotors stood up to the assault reasonably well, but if it was our car, we’d upgrade the pads and brake fluid to more hardy items if we were taking it to the track regularly.

The engine can be caught off boost under 3500rpm at times, so in that respect it’s still like the old Type Rs; give ’em revs and they’ll love you forever.

It could also stand to be a bit more overt with its exhaust noise. A bi-modal system, for example, that emits pops, crackles and bangs on throttle overrun would suit it perfectly.

In all, the Type R is an absolute barrel of monkeys to punt at speed, and it doesn’t punish you when you go to drive home again.

The new Impreza has a few headline numbers, but the one you really want to know is this - it's 70 percent stiffer than the old one. You probably want to know why that's good.

The stiffer a car, the better it is because the engineers don't have to compromise as much on ride and handling. It also make it vastly easier to isolate noises and gosh darn it, it just feels better.

It's a big improvement all around. The cabin is much, much quieter and the car feels a lot more planted. It will still understeer, seemingly long before the Mazda3 or i30, but again, it's better than the car it replaces.

The transmission is Subaru's best attempt yet at the CVT auto, although quite why you put a torque converter into the mix when you could just put a solid six-speed auto in is anyone's guess, but Subaru employs much smarter people than me, so I'm sure they know what they're doing. There's no whine and the usual flaring seems well-contained, a stark contrast to the Levorg I drove last year.

It's pretty slow, though. Overtaking is something you'll need to plan and even though it's one of the better CVTs, you either need to kick it down with the paddles (there are seven artificial steps in the transmission) or be prepared to wait it out. Single carriageway country roads will mean a lot of time stuck behind caravaners. We're talking titchy automatic hatchback slow.

As far as other complaints go, the halogen headlights are a bit on the weak side, the touchscreen is really slow to respond and there's a space-saver spare.

Also, the remote's 'big' button, the Subaru logo, doesn't lock the car, but unlocks it. This might just be motoring journalist different-car-every-week syndrome, but I reckon the easiest button to press should lock the car.

The Impreza comes with seven airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls (as well as all-wheel drive), brake force distribution, brake assist and a reversing camera, all of which adds up to a five star ANCAP safety rating.

There are three top-tether child seat points and two ISOFIX locations.

Here on the L is where EyeSight debuts in the range. While a screaming madman hellbent on annoying the crap out of you in the Forester, it's a much calmer system in the Impreza (and Liberty and Outback).

EyeSight refers to a pair of cameras in the windscreen that scan the road ahead and provide the data for the forward collision warning, active cruise control and AEB. It's quite clever and didn't suffer the failures I had previously encountered in the Levorg and Forester.

Honda offers the Type R with a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, and suggests service intervals of 10,000km or 12 months.

Its fixed-price servicing regime locks in the cost of the first 10 services at $307 each, which is a real bargain given the car’s performance.

Imprezas are covered by Subaru's three-year/unlimited kilometre warranty and a year's roadside assistance in the form of a membership with your local motoring organisation (NRMA, RACV, RACQ etc.)

Also on offer is capped-price servicing for the first three years or 37,500km. Service intervals are 12 months or 12,500km, with the A and C services costing $348.30 and the B Service $601.59, a total of $1298.19.

After that, there is a further two years of "transparent pricing".