Turbo vs V8- 2024 Honda Civic Type R vs Ford Mustang Drag Race, Roll Race, Brake Test!

What is the best fun car for $45,000? Well, we've got two of them lined up here, ready for a drag race at the airstrip. What you want, Tommy, is a brand new 2024 Honda Civic Type R. Yeah, you're wrong about that one, Case. What you really want is a new 2024 Ford Mustang GT, the S650 generation. Yeah, Case's Gen 4 Coyote sounds absolutely insane, especially in track mode. Well, the Civic Type R is a car for people who have neighbors. Neighbors that you want to keep in your good graces, that's for sure. All right. So I'm going to count down the drag race whenever you're ready. Basically, I'm going to go 3, 2, 1, go. I've gone into drag strip in the S650 Mustang. Are you in your sportiest setting? I'm in the plus R mode, but I'm actually leaving traction control on because this car really likes to roast those front tires. All right, you ready? Here we go. In 3, 2, 1, go. Chirp second gear. And he's just becoming a dot in my rear view mirror. Oh, my God. I got a good launch and it doesn't even matter. There's so much power in that Mustang. That's actually a better racer than I thought. How was that, Case? What'd you do? Well, I'll tell you what, I got a 15.5 at 99 miles per hour here at a mile above sea level on an unprepped surface. And this Civic, again, really likes to spin those front tires. I was pretty happy with my launch, but what did you get? I have no idea because I was in the wrong zero to 60 mode on the solo. So I'm going to go run it again. And I'm going to do it again. And then I'll tell you that was pretty dumb. I am pretty happy, though. I had you off the launch and then that Mustang just got into the top end and there was nothing for me to do. Got a better jump than him. I know. He's chirping third, though. Yeah. Yeah, there is a little bit of a power deficit here. 3, 2, 1, go. Oh, great launch in the Mustang. The car shifts hard. It drag boats super hard. There's 95 miles an hour already across 100 miles an hour. And I just ran a 13.66. 66. Very spicy. Yeah, 111.7. Yeah, the trap speed is high. Yeah, I mean, look, so it's the mile above sea level is what's killing this NA engine, right? And of course, we're not accounting for rollout. That's just right from right from zero. So, yeah, pretty good time on the Mustang. Pretty impressed with that overall. Chase, walk me through some of the performance specs in this Type R. It's impressive. This is a two liter four cylinder turbo, obviously six speed manual front wheel drive, and it makes 315 horsepower, 310 pound feet of torque, which is a lot of power and a lot of torque for a front wheel drive car. Now, this does use that dual axis structure suspension. And what's amazing about this car. Let me downshift in a second here. Full throttle. Look at that. Straight as an arrow. Yeah, that's impressive. It doesn't torque steer, but especially off the line, even if you're just driving around regularly when this comes on the boost, it does so with a vengeance and it loves to roast those front tires. Now, the engine in this vehicle, right? The K20C1, four cylinder turbo, two liter in displacement. What I really like about this engine is it doesn't make the power until like 6500 RPM. So it's kind of got that classic Honda high RPM fun. But you still get a really solid punch of torque at the low end. So you're not lacking. Yeah. I mean, the other thing I'm noticing, too, just turning this car around, you notice it's the second you get behind the wheel. The 6P transmission, maybe one of the best feeling transmissions ever made. It's a phenomenal transmission, and they beefed it up to handle the extra power that this makes over the previous generation car. I also want to talk a little bit about the interior in this car, because it feels noticeably more special than a standard Civic. They did a really nice job differentiating it. So obviously you have like the red Honda logos and some red stitching here, but the primary difference has to be the Type R bucket seats. Yeah, these seats are pretty crazy. One disadvantage, no heated seats, but they grip you really well, almost too well. It might be a little uncomfortable on a road trip, but they look spectacular. You got red seatbelts on me, red carpets. This is a cool car. It's a really cool interior, especially. And what I would tell you about the seats is if you are a wider individual, if you were like a normally sized individual, even by American standards, you're probably not going to want to do more than two hours in these seats. Yeah, they're pretty narrow. They are pretty narrow. And the other thing is this is a performance car in all metrics. Feel that wheel spin? Yeah. And yeah, this suspension, especially here in Colorado, where our roads aren't the best, the suspension beats you up a little bit in this. Yeah, but look at that high speed stability. 90 miles an hour, 100 miles an hour. I mean, you can even take 20 in this car. I mean, look at that. It's incredible. I also love the shift lights that you have there on the dash. Give you a really cool feeling when you're revving it through the gears and you see those lights light up. It's just a fun car to drive. The other thing which I'm just blown away with is the steering in this car is just so quick, so responsive. And look, it's an it's an electronic power steering setup, right? An electric power steering setup. But it gives you really good feel. Yeah. Compare this to like an e-pass system from a couple of years ago that were just so dead. You couldn't really tell what was happening beyond center. This thing is beautifully, yeah, beautifully engineered. The other nice thing that you can't forget is that we're comparing two performance cars. But because this is front wheel drive, even in a snowy climate like Colorado, you can still drive it in the winter. And because you've got four doors in that hatch, you can take your friends with you. You can take more stuff with you. So it is going to be in a lot of ways a more usable car. Now, let's talk about some things which maybe aren't so good. The technology, we've got a nine inch screen in this car. Yeah, very easy to use. But at this price point of $45,000, it's looking a little small. Yeah, it is. It's not the best suite of tech, especially for the money and to some of the things that we already discussed. It is compromised as far as a practical car goes. So this is only a four seater. It's not a five seater. So you can't sit somebody in the middle back there. And it is just stiff. I think that's the biggest thing that stands out to me. That would be a little hard to live with at times. And it has a tiny fuel tank. Yeah, so a couple hundred miles of fun and you're going to be filling up. It could use a bigger fuel tank. And the other thing, too, is, you know, 265 width tire, 19 inch wheels, low profile, like you mentioned, right? As fun as it is on this closed course and just the tossability and the incredible turn in. You get this tire wheel set up out in the real world, in the Midwest via potholes. Oh, yeah. It's pretty firm. It might suffer. It's pretty aggressive, 100%. So now, Casey, the thing that we got to talk about, right? $45,000 Civic. Is it worth $45,000? It's a tough call because this is actually a pretty competitive segment right now. There's a lot of really good cars that are competing against this, like the GR Corolla. And it depends on your use case. I think you could definitely make a case for this being worth $45,000. But should you pick it over some of the other cars that you can get that it competes against? Tough call. It is a tough call, right? I mean, I kind of go back and forth because from a chassis dynamic standpoint, especially a transmission, this vehicle is far ahead of the Corolla, the GR Corolla or like a WRX or even like a manual transmission Mustang. I mean, there's just so many incredible precision components in this vehicle that allow it to handle like it does. However, it is still a Civic, right? So as nice as these seats are, you still have a fairly basic set of controls. You still have a pretty basic set of interior features in here. So it's a tough call. And then you also don't get all-wheel drive like you do in a Toyota. Yeah. But compared to the Mustang, it's $45,000, both performance-oriented cars, but they really couldn't be more different. If you really care about what your car drives like in the canyons, if you really want a focus on steering, transmission, interaction, braking performance, this car is miles ahead of the Ford. Absolutely. But if you live in Kansas and you just want to go incredibly quick in a straight line, I mean, the Ford's going to do that better. So, Casey, clearly in the quarter mile, the Mustang is a quicker car. No surprise, there's a lot more power in this Ford. But what if we take the launch out of it completely and do a roll race? What does that car weigh? Well, this car weighs around about 3,200 pounds, which is pretty light for a modern car. That is pretty light for a modern car. I mean, if you compare it to this Mustang, this thing's top of the scale is at right around 3,800 pounds. We're looking at 600 pounds more or roughly the weight of one American. So it's a pretty, pretty good-sized difference. The other nice thing here is that with the rolling race, we typically take a little bit of the distance out of the equation. So you might not have as much time to run away from me. And we are a mile above sea level. So even though you are making way more power, the turbo in this Civic Type R does help. And just to make it a little bit more interesting, I'm just going to leave this Mustang in drag mode in drive, letting the transmission decide what to do, whereas you got the manual so you can be more selective. Let's see how they do. Man, that engine sounds so good in track mode. There's 15, 25, 30, 3, 2, 1, go. Man, over 7,000 RPM redline. Come on, Mustang! Even with this car being able to pull away a little bit at the beginning because it's light, there's no staying with the Mustang. Well, you know, dude, I have to say I definitely won that. There's no doubt around it. But, you know, for considering you have like over 150 less horsepower, that car really kept up. Oh, especially right off the crack. That weight difference definitely let me pull out ahead. And then as soon as the Mustang downshifted and got into the top end, once again, horsepower wins drag races. 100%. Yeah, I mean, the weight difference is big. The altitude was in your favor, but, you know, 160 horsepower difference. It's not going to it's not going to come back with that. Now, look, we all know that a big bad V8 Mustang is fast in a straight line, but there's a lot more to a performance car than straight line. And we have this big drag strip. I'd say we should do a braking test. All right. All right. I'm digging that. Do you mind if I go swap for the performance pack Mustang really quick? And I'll be right back. Yeah, tell me a little bit about. Well, look, for 45 grand, you can't really get a dark horse or performance pack Mustang, so you're going to end up with a base GT, which is still running Brembos, but they're the small Brembos. And we're also running a set of all season tires, 265s Continental, which is actually smaller in width than the tire on that Type R. Yeah, I've got a pretty mean set of tires on this Type R. It's Michelin Pilot Sport S's 265. So they're actually a little bit wider than your Continental Pro Contacts. And I've got massive 350 millimeter Brembos on this car. Yeah. OK, well, OK. Granted, braking is kind of important in a performance car, but let's see what happens in the real world. We're going to go up to 60 and then slam on the anchor. See which one comes to a stop first. Here's the other thing about his car. It weighs a lot less than that Mustang, which means I've got less mass that I have to bring to a stop here when we go slam on the brakes. I feel pretty good about this. Oh, yeah. Beat him by about a car length. It's a pretty big difference. And I noticed yours kind of stopped in a straight line where mine did kind of an alarming squiggle. Yeah, I'd say it's, you know, about a car length, if not just a little bit more. All right, my dude, from 60 miles an hour, you came to a stop at 111 feet. You know, I would personally hope for a little bit more in a car that's got almost 500 horsepower. You know, I think you're right. I understand that the performance pack is more expensive and it's an option and it's a track focused one. But even in the standard one, I hope for some better brakes. Yeah. Oh, that's real good. Ninety one feet to 20 feet less in Civic compared to the Mustang. Yeah, which especially on a track makes a huge difference. And again, speaking of having these cars on a traditional track, this car is lighter, it's stiffer, it's got better brakes. It's not as fast in a straight line, but there's a lot of advantages to this. Oh, I got to tell you what, Tommy, right off the bat, I like that. Those sound great. So this car, let's talk about the spec on this car, right? It's it's pretty much realistically one of the cheapest Mustangs you're going to find in the real world. So it's a base GT. It's got three options. It's got the automatic transmission, which is a it's got the performance exhaust, which is awesome. And it's got dual zone climate control, which is like, who cares? And we bought this car for 42. I don't hate that. And that's why we bought this car. But let me show you a problem. Get on the throttle, take it up to about 110. Hey, I'll do what you say. Feels good. Oh, you feel that? Yeah, that's weird. So it feels like it gets a little light and we're floating. Yeah. And then you get on the brakes and it dives back and forth. And this is definitely a softer, more comfortable suspension on public roads. Right. But you start to push it like that and you see the downside. And that really, really demonstrates the difference in these cars. I mean, with the Mustang, you're buying really the engine in the looks. Yeah, because it is an incredible engine, a five liter Coyote with 485 horse and you're buying, you know, the incredible Mustang looks. But from a chassis dynamic standpoint, it's a little soft and squidgy. It is. This feels like a Grand Tourer. It doesn't feel like a honed, focused performance. A hundred percent. Yeah. Now, that engine is fantastic. Oh, yeah. So you get a little bit more horsepower and you get in the Gen 4 Coyote. You've got a dual intake setup. You got a new oil pan. Got a couple of changes and the engine is just the star of the show. It's what makes this car so good. But from a chassis dynamic standpoint, if you really. Yeah, right. I mean, it's all over the place. It feels a little a little lazy and a little loose. And you could say, well, let's just get the performance back car. But then you're going to be spending 60 grand. Exactly. So you can make a Mustang be just as performance oriented as that Civic Type R. But then you're looking at a very different tax bracket. Yeah. For the mid $40,000 range, both of these cars are a ton of fun. The Honda is a much more engaging car to drive. It's much more fun on the back road and it just handles so much better. If you're looking for a daily driver or a road tripper, the Mustang is a fantastic value with a ton of power. Just don't expect it to keep up with the Honda on a back road. As always, it's been Tommy Case and behind the camera, Alex. We'll see you on the next video.