Hottest hatchback is fast and furious fun N

OW I confess that a long, long time ago - when I was a little less wise - I had a bright red Mk 1 Ford Capri with a huge ‘ski jump’ boot spoiler and an almost as big floor-scraping front wing.

I thought it was the bee’s knees - despite me never managing to save up the cash to complete the look with big wide wheels... and there being an asthmatic V4 engine under the bonnet. So that 19-year-old me would have absolutely loved this week’s test car - the in-your-face Honda Civic Type R GT.

It was described by a Top Gear chap earlier this month as ‘looking like it was designed by a five year old’ but then the presenter - like me - just loved the Type R once he got behind the wheel.

For, unlike my clapped-out Capri, this motor has the go to match its show… 315bhp, which means 0 to 62 in 5.8 seconds and a top speed of 169 mph!

You can forgive the space rocket looks - this thing does what it says on the tin… and it would be unfair on other drivers not to flag that up with suitably flamboyant styling.

OK - it looks like it has come straight out of a Fast and Furious film with its huge spoilers and triple exhaust - but that is what Type Rs have always been about... pure, unashamed performance.

Sadly I did not get to thrash the Honda around a track like my TV colleague - but even on the road you can tell this is something special.

Last year Honda re-engineered their iconic hot hatch from the ground up in pursuit of building the ‘perfect sports machine.’ And I reckon they are pretty much there.

It is not just the power and straight line grunt - despite its rubber band-like skinny tyres this thing corners like it is on rails. That’s probably why the Type R is the fastest front wheel drive car ever around the legendary Nurburgring.

Yet in ‘comfort’ mode it is fairly civilised and, yes, almost comfortable. Although it seemed rude to not drive around in Sport and, very occasionally and only where safe to do so, +R mode.

It was also not phased by conditions which would have challenged some 4x4s, as I used the Type R to take the Supreme Being for a weekend break to the Scottish borders - where I thought we were going to come unstuck in the most bizarre weather I have ever seen.

There were blizzards hitting the M6 as we entered Cumbria and things just got worse and worse with snow coming down sideways - and us in a car that looked like it would be more at home on the race track rather than ploughing through snow drifts. As we neared our destination hotel in northern Cumbria – having left the relative safety of the Motorway - we came across a young couple who had got into a jam in the snow... in a Land Rover.

So the track car became a snow rescue vehicle as we drove the shaken pair to a nearby village to arrange to get their Freelander recovered from a ditch. They were locals and said they had never seen weather like it - or a car like ours - which just about sums up the general reaction the Type R gets. Those under 35 seem to love it while older people tended to say: “It’s ridiculous… but can I have a go!”

Back to the numbers and the standard Type R is £30,995 on the road while this better appointed GT version (which is a little heavier and so a fraction of a second slower) starts at £32,995.

For that you get such civilised features as DAB radio, sat-nav, auto lights and wipers, red sports seats, 20” black alloys, parking sensors all round rear view camera and loads of safety and tech, including wireless phone charging.

It is unlikely people who buy this kind of car really care about fuel consumption, but for the record we managed mid 30s on our trip which makes Honda’s claimed 36.7mpg combined and 43.5 extra urban seen entirely achievable… until the red mist comes down and you put it in +R mode.

More info at www.honda.co.uk THE Range Rover Vellar (above) has just been voted the most beautifully designed vehicle on the planet at the 2018 World Car Awards in New York.

The British luxury SUV overcame the Volvo XC60 and the Lexus LC 500 to take the World Car Design of the Year award, as voted for by the World Car Awards jury, comprising 82 influential motoring journalists from 24 countries.

Designed, engineered and manufactured in the UK, the luxury SUV is priced from £44,830.