When the brand-new Honda Civic Type R showed up in production spec at the Geneva Motor Show this year, word was it would enter U.S. shores by late spring. Presently, when car business use that sort of ambiguous terms, it can typically mean we won’t see the automobile in showrooms until the Fourth of July is about a fortnight away. However in this case, it seems Honda may have in fact implied the vehicle will arrive prior to school gets out … thinking about a ready-for-prime-time 2017 Honda Civic Type R was caught in California this previous weekend.
The YouTube video, dated to April 9th and published to Reddit’s/ r/cars on Monday, reveals a black, apparently-production-spec Civic Type R using manufacturer license plates. As the video begins, the vehicle is caught idling in a parking area next to a two-lane roadway; minutes later on, it pulls onto the road and zips away, the motorist tossing a brief bit of unspoken shade at the cameraman prior to vanishing with a departure that displays the vehicle’s 295 pound-feet of torque more than the raspy rev of the turbocharged VTEC near the top end.
Based on the roadway sign at the end of the video-you can make out what seem to be distance figures explaining the mileage to “Big Pines,” “Buckhorn,” and “Wrightwood”-this Civic Type R appears to have been caught someplace in the vicinity of the Angeles National park north of L.A. Thinking about Honda’s North America headquarters lie about 60 miles to the south in Torrance, CA, it appears completely possible that some Honda higher-up borrowed the vehicle for the weekend in order to acquaint himself with it.
Here’s the video.
