it's one you should probably be putting in your garage whilst you still can.

Honda were truly mad in the late 2000s.

They went to the obscene effort of building two versions of its niche small performance car: the Honda Civic Type R. Honda built one version on a sedan body type for its native market of Japan and one export version on a hatchback platform for Western markets like Europe and Australia.

At one point, Honda was building cars in the United Kingdom, sending engines over from Japan to fit the cars it built in the UK, then exporting those UK-built cars with Japanese engines back to Japan.

Regardless, it’s the Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) only Honda Civic Type R that was the best of the wider bunch. A genuine race car for the showroom, the ‘FD2R’ generation Type R has a pretty amazing powertrain to back its excellent chassis tune.

Not only does it have the highest output K20A engine (165 kW/215 Nm) found in a series-production Honda car, but also the sharpest gearing of the lot. Its transmission is equipped with the 5.06 final drive ratio and TorSen LSD out of the box!

That insanely short diff ratio gives the FD2R a certain fizziness that other naturally-aspirated cars just don’t have. It feels modified and uncompromised out of the box, and even with a six-digit odometer, they still feel tight as a drum.

They are a true driver’s car and one of the best of the modern era. Another ace up its sleeve is a low kerb weight, as the 2008 Honda Civic Type R weighs just 1270kg.