Car of the Day

Sometimes I think Japan and Germany still have a mini-grudge against the USA because of how WWII turned out.  

Japan’s Honda Motor Cars has a for a long time kept their very best Civic to themselves in the form of the Civic Type-R.  Another hot rod Civic has been making the rounds as Honda thumbs its nose at America with the new Honda Civic Mugen RR.

The RR is Honda’s 237hp Civic that is nearly track-ready.  Take a Honda Civic Type-R and let Mugen tune it and you end up with this little gem that the American car buying public will never get a chance to buy.  Actually, no body is going to get a chance to buy the best Civic.  The RR started its life sold out.  There are only 300 of these confusing little cars.  Confusing, because this car has a serious identity crisis.    It is basically a full-on track car that started its life as an economy car.  

And on the other end of the scale is another car that is making the rounds in the automotive test fleets and that is the Audi RS6.  The Audi has more than twice the power and cylinders of the Civic.  It is powered by a 571hp twin-turbocharged V10.  Ahhh, I love the smell of overkill in the morning.  

The meanest A6 has a conservative factory 0-60 estimate of 4.5 seconds.  It will be faster than that.  

There are no plans to bring this version of the Audi RS6 to the USA.  Are the Germans still bitter?  They actually plan to bring the next version of the RS6 to America in 2012, but a lot can change in 4 years.  The one thing the RS6 isn’t, is a deal.  This sedan is on sale right now in Germany for $126,000.  That puts the RS6 in some rarified company, but it has the horsepower to back it up.  

If you really want one of these cars I would suggest the one of the 1000 Honda Civic Mugen Si’s that came to America this year.

Or if you need a RS Audi sedan you can buy the 420hp Audi RS4.  

You can read more about each of these cars at Inside Line.

Honda Civic Mugen RR

Audi RS6

Honda Civic Mugen Si Sedan

Audi RS4