The MRSP for the 2018 Honda Civic Type R was set at $33,900. Some people thought that was a little expensive for a front-wheel-drive hot hatch when Honda first set the price. If you’ve seriously looked into buying one of these cars, though, you’d likely be thrilled to buy it for anything close to the roughly $34,000 price tag.
Dealers are marking these cars up big time, according to Jalopnik. Apparently, the car is so highly sought after that one dealer Jalopnik spoke with marked up Civic Type Rs by 90 percent. Are you interested in paying $60,000 for a Civic Type R? Neither are we.
The first Civic Type R to come to the states was auctioned off on Bring A Trailer for $200,000. While that may seem completely absurd, the money went to a worthy cause. The full amount of the winning bid went to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, including the five percent that the auction website usually takes of the sale. That, to us, makes sense, but paying nearly double the MSRP for a car that isn’t some kind of charitable donation effort seems completely bonkers.
Not All Civic Type Rs are Marked Up That High
According to CNET, the markups on Civic Type Rs typically range anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to $15,000. The dealer that Jalopnik found charging 90 percent more than the MRSP seems to be the outlier. Still, an extra $10 or $15k on a car is nothing to sneeze at. As CNET rightly points out $43,900 is getting pretty close to BMW M2 territory. The Civic Type R is certainly special but is it really that special?
Jalopnik noted that one dealership in California is charging a $5,000 fee just to be on the waiting list for the Civic Type R. It doesn’t end there, though, after the five grand waiting list fee, customers will pay $15,000 more than the car’s MSRP. We’d be willing to pay a couple thousand over MSRP if we really had to, but anything approaching five thousand seems like way too much.
Why Can Dealers Charge So Much?
The reason dealers charge customers so much is due to the fact that they can. It’s a classic case of supply and demand. People want the car and there aren’t too many of them out there. That’s why the dealer in California can charge $5k to be on a waiting list.
That dealer told Jalopnik, “We’ve been getting requests for this car for over a year.” The owner of the dealership noted that only about 6,000 of the cars will be sold in the states, so it’s easy to see why he wants to get as much money out of each one that comes his way.
The Civic Type R has Honda fanboys, fangirls and just about every enthusiast interested. While we haven’t had the chance to drive the car yet, judging from the reviews of other publications, the car is excellent on a twisty road, despite the fact that it isn’t a rear-wheel-drive car like most sports cars. Car and Driver noted that the Civic Type R drives “with precision and nearly unflappable composure.” Chris Harris of Top Gear said, “The art of front-wheel drive has become really, really clever,” during his video review of the car, though he wasn't thrilled with the interior, exterior, or the car's tech, saying the car as a whole fit in the "flawed genius category."
Several other publications have been singing the Civic Type Rs praises from a driving standpoint as well. With that kind of publicity and the buzz that already surrounded the model before it made its trek across the ocean to the U.S., there’s little wonder the car is so highly sought after. Still, paying tens of thousands of dollars above sticker price sounds a little crazy to us. Instead of buying the Civic Type R for around $40k, we’d rather have the Civic Si Coupe (base MRSP of $24,100) and then consider buying another car, like the Honda Fit, for the days when we needed a more practical ride.
