Basically, the Type R makes a lot of noise and revs to the stars ??“ but it just doesn??™t go hard. The Honda claimed 0-100 km/h time is 6.6 seconds. We??™d suggest that in the sort of getaway you might perform at a set of traffic lights, the real time is closer to 8 seconds. In fact, launch gently with the air on before mashing your foot to the floor and it??™s not hard to stretch that even further. Basically, that means the local cooking sedans that leap from the line with torque ??“ Aurion, Falcon, Commodore, 380 - will easily wipe you to the urban limit if you??™re so foolhardy as to line them up.

And the embarrassment isn??™t confined to just traffic light drags. Up a steep, windy and bumpy country road, a Mitsubishi 380 that we??™ve driven was able to set faster times than the Type R screaming at 7000 ??“ 8000 rpm.

And if you think it??™s unfair to compare the Type R to local sedans, try comparing it with its direct competition ??“ Golf GTi, Mazda 3 MPS, Focus XR5 and so on. There the Honda looks simply ridiculous in the paucity of its performance. At 1345kg it??™s in the same weight ballpark as its opposition but has far less power. For example, the Mazda 3 has a flywheel figure of 190kW, well in excess of the Honda??™s 148kW. But the vital point to realise is that the peak torque of the Mazda is 97 per cent greater . That??™s right, there??™s almost twice the torque ??“ and it occurs at 3000 rpm, not the Honda??™s 5600 rpm. To put this another way, at 80 km/h in fourth gear in the Honda you have 62kW available at the wheels. In the Mazda you??™ve got 115kW available! (See the dyno graph at the end of this story for more.)

And so hell, it??™s no surprise that the Mazda 3 goes like a cut snake and the Honda Type R leisurely winds its way to stratospheric revs...

Source: [url=http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_109041/article.html]AutoSpeed[/url]