Assembly of the 2023 Honda Civic Type R will be handled in Japan, Honda confirmed to The Drive on Friday. This marks a return to Honda’s homeland more than a decade after the last Type R was built there.
Honda confirmed the move when after the VIN seen on the prototype at the new Type R’s reveal indicated the car would be made overseas. A company spokesperson specified the assembly location would be Yorii, Saitama, factory where the regular 2022 Civic hatchback is also built. This confirms that the Type R won’t be produced at Honda’s Greensburg, Indiana plant, which also produces the Civic hatch.
“For the past three generations the Civic Type R was built in the U.K. as it was the only plant building the Civic Hatchback after the 2006 model year,” a Honda spokesperson told The Drive. “Due to a realignment of global production, that plant has since closed.”
As for why the Type R will be made in Japan and not Indiana, it’s not a statement of one country’s labor quality over another. Remember, Honda entrusted the Acura NSX‘s entire production run to the Performance Manufacturing Center in Marysville, Ohio. Instead, Honda’s spokesperson said it was more about a low-volume product like the Type R not fitting in with Greensburg’s high-volume emphasis.
“Our Indiana plant is at capacity and focused on two very high-volume products, Civic Hatchback and CR-V,” the Honda spokesperson said. “Adding a smaller-volume model like the Type R to that mix doesn’t fit with the facility’s focus at this time.”
The 2023 Honda Civic Type R, codenamed FL5, will mark the first time a Japan-made Civic Type R is sold globally. While Honda also made a variant of the third-generation Type R there, the FD2 that version was only sold in Japan.
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