Honda unveils bizarre Civic Type R pickup truck concept

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.

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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.