I’ve seen many eye-catching cars in my life, but I think Honda’s new Civic Type R pickup truck takes the title for most outlandish car ever. Just the name alone makes you raise your eyebrow and wonder, “Why the hell did Honda make a Civic Type R pickup truck?” A very fair question if you ask me and one that Honda answered proudly when unveiling its new performance pickup truck.
If you are unfamiliar with the Civic Type R, it’s Honda’s performance version of the wildly popular sedan. Equipped with a 2.0-liter turbo VTEC engine, it is capable of producing a gaudy 306 horsepower and 295-pound feet of torque, and it all comes in an uber aggressive design. Not quite the car you’d have in mind to convert into a pickup truck, but it happened.
Unveiled during the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders event in the UK, Honda revealed what it had to do to convert the car over. Internally known as “Project P,” it was designed by a team of Honda engineers at the UK Manufacturing plant in Swinton, England.
Essentially, Honda hacksawed the rear part of the roofline. Honda engineers then “adapted the design rearwards from B-pillars with sweeping lines from the roofline to the back.”
Honda decided to keep the rear door and the oversized spoiler intact. The spoiler is removable, however, which provides easy access to the bed when opening the rear door. The bed is lined with industrial aluminum, but it doesn’t provide a lot of space—only a few items will fit in the back.
Looking at the Civic Type R pickup truck for the first time is quite a shock, but it kind of starts growing on you after a while. Unfortunately, Honda has no plans to mass produce the concept. For now, it says it is thinking of transporting the car to Nuerburging and using it to transport “lawn and garden products” where it’ll live out the rest of its days in peace.
