Civic Type R puts Honda back on an interesting track

We have some bad or good news (not sure which): the new Honda Civic Type R isn't as wild as it looks.

How could it be? Honda went over-the-top with the Type R's outfit, which comprises enormous flares, outrageous aero and three exhaust pipes. If you're worried that rear spoiler will obscure your vision, it's fine: way too tall for that.

It's desirable for the Type R to advertise in this way, of course. It's Honda's new hero model, holder of the lap record for FWD cars around the legendary Nurburgring circuit in Germany (7min 43.3sec) and a very serious piece of machinery.

The 2-litre turbo engine makes a mighty 228kW/400Nm, it comes only with a six-speed manual transmission (including rev-matching function), there's R-specific adaptive suspension with unique geometry up front, a limited-slip differential and Brembo brakes.

So it's appropriate that it wears superhero clothes. It's just that the initial impression might be more The Tick than Superman.

Once you've taken in the exterior visage, you might be expecting a wastegate-whoosh, neck-snapping acceleration and denture-damaging ride at any speed.

Not so. Indeed, one of the most remarkable things about the latest Type R is how Honda has made it work so well as an everyday car. There are three drive modes to choose from, and while Sport is the default you can choose to dial it down even further into Comfort.

The power delivery is linear at low speed and there's a little turbo lag, which acts as a calming influence without interrupting the flow too much. The manual gearbox is slick and while the ride is still firm, it's certainly not a deal-breaker for urban driving.

The Type R has variable ratio steering, so it's slower around the straight-ahead and gets quicker the more you turn. That means the car doesn't feel fast-car-nervous in brisk motorway driving.

There might be three exhaust pipes, but this is not an especially loud or tiresome machine for day-to-day driving. Indeed, that's one of the jobs of that third, smaller outlet: to reduce the drone at low revs.

Nor is the Type R a stripper. It has all the driver-assistance technology you'd want, including adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and Honda's clever LaneWatch camera, which shows you the left-hand side of the car on the centre screen when you indicate. The infotainment and instrumentation controls are infuriatingly fiddly, but that's true of all Civics - and you do get Android/Apple phone projection, which simplifies things somewhat.

Yes, there are all kinds of reasons why you wouldn't want to drive the leery Type to work, but overall comfort isn't one of them.

It's easy to make a leery-looking hatch that's easy to drive into town. It's incredibly challenging to make that same car a driver-focused star in hard road and track use.

And that's the true genius of the Type R. We've already done the track bit - at Hampton Downs,during Honda New Zealand's media launch for the car earlier this year. It was brilliant, but a brilliant car on-track doesn't always make for a satisfying road car.

Again, mission-accomplished. Even when you dial it up to R-mode (the third and most aggressive setting) on-road, this is still is a composed and satisfying hot-hatch over demanding Kiwi tarmac. It's not crazy-fast (0-100kmh 5.7 seconds) but in terms of A-to-B ability it's a stunner.

If you're a hot-hatch purist then FWD is the only way to go. But 228kW is a ridiculous amount of power for that format. The Type R handles it with a special dual-axis front-suspension design, limited-slip differential and clever traction control that can nibble away at the inside wheel to keep the car powering away in the right direction.

It feels nimble, although it doesn't dance from understeer to oversteer at the tweak of the throttle like some powerful front-drivers. It's more settled and sorted than that, so there are very few scary moments even in extremis. It just does everything right - even the things that you can't do yourself, like automatically giving you an expert heel-and-toe-style downshift with the manual gearbox via the rev-matching function.

So the Civic Type R really is like a super-suit. You can be mild-mannered during the day, but when required it's the kind of car that allows ordinary people to do extraordinary things.