2019 Bang For Your Bucks - Winner Honda Civic Type R

THE NATURE OF Bang For Your Bucks makes it nearly impossible to pick a winner pre-event.

This was especially the case in 2019 with the purely subjective nature of the scoring, however, in hindsight, our 2018 Performance Car of the Year and the reigning Bang For Your Bucks champion would’ve been a smart bet.

The Honda Civic Type R wasn’t the best car on test. The BMW M2 Competition Pure topped four of the five judges’ scoresheets (Monsieur Cordony being the sole dissenting voice) scoring 266 of a possible 300 points. Thing is, the Civic snapped at its heels with a score of 261, almost 30 points clear of the third-ranked VW Golf R. Factor in the Honda’s $51,990 price tag, almost half what BMW asks for a base M2 Competition (itself a performance bargain), and it’s easy to see why the Type R was a runaway winner for the second consecutive year. In the final reckoning, its BFYB score of 139.9 was miles ahead of the second-placed Beemer (120.4) and third-placed Hyundai (115.7).

That said, it’s not difficult to find fault with the Civic Type R, even without discussing its divisive looks. It only seats four, there’s no sat-nav, the infotainment is almost deliberately obtuse and the secondary instruments are very hard to read. Crucially, though, none of these faults relate to the way it drives. It’s an incredibly accomplished car in isolation, but only in a comparative context is the quality of the Type R brought into sharp focus.