I think spending all the time trying to by an import just to save £1500 is maybe a waste fo time to be honest. Hunt around the dealers and look at ex-demo cars, you could easily save that amount with carefull shopping. Alternatively you could cut a deal on a new car with a good dealer and get at least that amount in extras for "goodwill" to sweeten the deal.
As for the
JDM car being no faster than the UK car? Total and utter poppycock
It is
considerably faster than the UK car, both off the line and, much more importantly point to point on real roads, in fact I can say (now from personal experience
) that it is mentally fast compared to the UK car. In fact the UK spec car following me was very quickly dropped from sight.
Add to that the fact that it is a "real" Type-R, so compared to the UK car it is light, powerfull, noisy (but what a noise
) and very Hardcore back to basics quick. It is also far more advanced with proper independent rear suspension and a very trick
LSD up front. Maybe you should have a proper read up on the
JDM car so you can find out just how different it is to our UK offering because beleive me, it is very different.
Best place for one of those is Lichfield Imports(no connection blah blah). I'm seriously tempted to get one myself, It is a shame they are so pricey, but to be honest all the magazines are right, you just can't compare the UK car. The
JDM is worth every single penny (IMHO).
However based on your original wish to save £1500 the
JDM being about £5k more expensive on the road probably puts it out of your planned price range.
As for your comment about the
JDM being the same bodyshell as the Hybrid, there is a simple reason for that. The Hybrid is the real "new" Civic as designed in Japan for the world wide market and based on a new chassis. The UK car is IIRC a rebodied Jazz chassis designed for the European market.
Ps. Just to confirm (again) I do like the UK version, it's a worthy UK range flagship, however I do wish Honda UK would do it properly and import the
JDM car
