Δ but mor e aut he nt ic t h a n t he Ford.
Judged on engines alone, then,
the two cars would be level pegging.
Throw gearboxes into the mix as
well and the Honda nudges ahead,
with its slicker and better-defined
shift quality. But add in locking front
differentials, too, and the Ford fights
back, its eLSD making a more instant
and powerful contribution to enrich
the car’s front-drive handling on
the road than the Honda’s simpler
mechanical helical diff.
For its steering and on-track
handling, however, most judges
marked the Civic ahead of the
Focus. Davis called the Honda’s rack
“superbly weighted, letting you guide
the car with supreme confidence”.
C a lo ob s e r v e d t h at it w a s “ mor e
natural feeling than in any of the
other hot hatchbacks, never making
the handling feel nervous but – in
tandem with the best engine and
gearbox combo of the group – always
exciting and rewarding.”
The consensus that slowly
emerged was that, for its
remarkable on-track grip level,
stability and outright pace, the
Honda remains today exactly
what it was two years ago:
the closest thing you can getto a full-blooded touring car
racing saloon that you could
also put to everyday use on
the road. Judge Lane even
commented that its body control and
sheer readiness to be hustled along,
lap after lap, made it the closest thing
to a Porsche 911 GT3 you can get with
a driven front axle.
Meanwhile, for more than one
judge, the handling poise and
adjustability hinted at by the Focus
ST’s on-road handling simply
failed to materialise somehow on
Llandow’s surprisingly revealing
mix of corners, cambers and kerbs.
Although incisive and exciting up to
a point, the Ford ultimately fell short
of the Honda’s mark for both outright
composure and driver reward.
That realisation came as a distinct
surprise to anyone who remembered
the playful balance of the first- and
second-generation Focus STs, but it
still couldn’t be denied.
With that acknowledgement,for every judge on the panel, three
became two at the very top of the
test’s order. Now then: what chance
a 181bhp Mazda, operating at a
r e l at i v e d i s a d v a nt a ge of mor e t h a n
50bhp per tonne, might show up a
316bhp Honda and record a second
BBADC title for what has become one
of the world’s most long-lived and
indefatigably brilliant sports cars in
its 30th anniversary year?
That was a question pondered
long and hard by our testing panel.
Their quandary wasn’t because
the wonderfully immersive and
singularly entertaining drive of
the MX-5 didn’t stand out above
t h at of e v e n t he v e r y b e s t of t he r e s t
of the field, but partly because it
seemed so different: delicate rather
than forceful, and feelsome, lithe
and lovely with it. Moreover, it was
because the way you’d use a two-seat
sports car would be so different from
a big, five-seat family hatchback –
and, as we’ve written so many times,`
The Honda is the closest thing
to a full-blooded touring car that
you could also use every day
a
Welsh^ B-roads^ are^
ideal^ for^ assessing^
a car’s^ true^ ability