Honda unveils bizarre Civic Type R pickup truck concept

Launch of bespoke prototype marks one-year anniversary of the hot hatchback

Honda Civic Type R pick-up crop
One-off pickup was made by specialist engineers at Honda’s Swindon factory
(Image credit: Honda)

Honda is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its Civic Type R by launching a one-off pickup truck concept version of the popular hot hatchback.

The somewhat strange-looking concept, nicknamed Project P, was built by Synchro Motorsport, the team behind several Honda racing programmes, during “some of the quieter moments” at the firm’s headquarters in the Wiltshire town of Swindon, says Evo.

The sporty pickup is based on an “unregistered pre-production” version of the Civic Type R and currently isn’t road legal, the magazine says.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The front end of the concept is almost identical to the road-going hot hatch, with most of the modifications appearing behind the front seats.

The rear seats and boot lid are gone, replaced with a pickup-inspired loading area with an “upward-opening tailgate”, according to Autocar. However, the boot retains the hatchback’s “not insubstantial” rear wing, which can be moved to allow greater access to the loading bay.

No modifications have been made to the chassis or the engine, with a 316bhp four-cylinder turbo motor sending power to the front wheels through a six-speed manual gearbox, says Auto Express.

There are no plans to put the pickup into production, but Honda is considering testing it out at the 12.9-mile Nurburgring race track in Germany, in a bid to set the lap record for “the fastest front-wheel drive pickup” , the magazine reports.

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.