Can’t quite believe I’m writing this. With my recent move to professional freelance photography, unfortunately it’s time for the car to go. I had great plans for the car, and unfortunately won’t get a chance to finish them off with photography taking priority.

It has had absolutely no expense spared on the car, and currently sits in a garage at my house. Living in London it very very rarely gets used, and it’s a shame to see a brilliant car wasted. I will be getting some up to date photographs shortly, and advertising it for sale, but have put this notice up on my blog before anywhere else as I know the car has quite a following.

If anyone is interested in purchasing the car as it is then please feel free to e-mail on rpardon@gmail.com with your best offer. The spec list for the car which is 99% up to date can be found here: http://dynax.trackshot.co.uk/?page_id=2

As i’m sure your all aware, it is meticulously looked after and has nothing but the very best fitted. With the recent front end respray, brand new carbon fibre bonnet etc the car is in very good condition. Taxed til next year, and MOT’d til the October. It has never given me any grief what so ever, and has nothing wrong with it, will be very sad to see it go!

No doubt I will end up breaking the car for parts, and selling as a standard Civic (so feel free to enquire about part sales) however I wanted to give the chance for somebody to own one of the most renowned modified civics EP3 all over the world.

Any questions, just post a comment or get in touch with me!

Modified Live 2010 at the famous Brands Hatch race circuit. The sun was shining, the Civic was clean and with 31 degree heat the car was entered into the Show ‘n’ Shine competition sponsored by Kleers.

Time Attack is always a brilliant sport to watch, and with friends competing it was great to catch up and see how their cars had developed. I must admit, ARTech’s K20 Rotrex CRX is absolutely immense. Hats off to those guys for building the car in just 4 days and being 4th fastest on the day with a few teething problems.

Afterwards myself and Mr.Manton with the famous Skellybob Civic took a cruise round the M25 (enjoying the dartford tunnel somewhat too much with the noise) and ended up at the South Mimms Honda meet. A great turnout, to which hopefully i’ll find a picture to upload soon!

It’s been a while since i’ve updated this blog, mainly as i’ve been busy with my photography career  – RP Photography (Shameless Plug!)

The car’s taken abit of a backseat, with my photography coming first. However it was time to role the Civic out of the garage and take it to nearby Bromley Pageant Show. The largest one day show in the UK, brought thousands of cars from all over the country to this classic and chilled event. The weather was scorching, and ‘tonnes’ of classic metal roared up to put on what I can only describe as the biggest display of cars in acres upon acres of grass!

It was great to meet up with old and new friends, see what has happend to their cars and get mine back out in the show scene. I was toying with the idea of selling, but the bug has bitten me again and you can expect to see a return of the Type R, with bigger and better things. Watch this space, but for now a quick picture of the car all ready to leave home for Bromley!

I was rather excited to hear from a fellow member over on the CivicType-R owners club about my car making an appearance on another television programme. This time, filmed at the Fast Show it’s possible to catch a glimpse of my car in the ‘Santa Pod Extravaganza’ programme being aired currently on Motors TV. I haven’t seen the clip myself yet, but here’s a screenshot:

The start of the 2010 show season is here, and with Sunday boasting wall-to-wall sunshine Santa Pod set a precendent for the reast of the year’s show season. Thousands of petrolheads queued to enter the gates to see what The Fast Show had to offer.

As a guest of Max Power, I was excited to show the car with the recent work carried about by Xquisite. Entered into the Show ‘n’ Shine it was an early start to the day.  To all of those I spoke to, the car got great comments with many questions asked about the modifications carried out. I was thrilled to see many taking photographs and was a pleasure to catch up with old friends. Bring on the rest of the show season and future modifications!

I’m going to use this post to say a huge thank you to K and Paul from ‘Xquisite Automotive’ in Croydon. After a quick e-mail I had arranged to drop my bumper down the very same night. With Xquisite promising the bumper to be ready before the Fast Show (Giving them 5 working days) and knowing how busy they were I was abit sceptical.

Popping down mid-way through the week to drop off the fuel cap for a paint match, I was amazed to see the quality and craftmanship that had gone into the repair of my genuine Mugen Facelift Lower Spoiler.

Saturday soon came around and I was able to collect the bumper. It had been seperated, repaired, prepped and painted all in time as promised and to an extremely high standard. During last Friday’s incident the Grille also sustained abit of damage, so this was repaired and painted Gloss Black which I think sets the front end off nicely!

The car is set to return to Xquisite during the next week or so for a final mopping session, but I am already thrilled about the quality of the work carried out. The Type-R will definately be returning in the near future for K and his team to work their ‘Xquisite’ magic. Take a look at their website here, or clicking in the links section.

Firstly an apology for the lack of updates, been busy recently trying to further my photography and this meant investing in some more strobist gear. Not to worry though, this’ll mean better photographs of the car to come! 

Talking of which, yesterday I had the pleasure of working with a fantastic model named Jenni up at Stowe Landscape Gardens, unfortunately on the way home there was an incident on the M25. Someone’s rogue run-away alloy wheel decided to bound across 3 lanes of the M25. With the van in the middle lane braking sharply back alongside my car, i had no option but to either hit the alloy wheel, or perform an emergency stop with a queue of traffic doing 70mph behind me. Didn’t fancy the latter option and ending up in hospital!

Minimal damage considering the noise the impact had made, just goes to show how tough the Mugen Facelift lower spoiler is! I honestly believe if this was a standard bumper, i would of been looking at a whole new bumper, radiator and possibly airbags! But instead, a small 1 inch tear in the fibreglass, tiny hole and lot of paint. I think luck must have been on my side not to cause any further damage! Off to the bodyshop!

Yes. You heard right, BP has just launched its revolutionary high-octane fuel, boasting to be the most advanced high-performance petroleum on sale in the UK. According to BP it meets the same high specifications of fuels used in F1 racing and the WRC, boasting upto 16% performance increases with the ignition remapped. It is road legal, and costs an amazing £2.42 per litre! With astronomical costs the pump even has it’s own keypad, with a code only known by the forecourt staff to ensure you don’t fill up by accident. Crazy prices, but I am wondering how much fun it would be to try on a custom map at a circuit?!

With my Toda High Power exhaust now being run on the car for quite some time, the rivetts in the backbox have started to work loose as the idea of the muffler on the Toda is to be repackable for race-use. I managed to source an HKS Hi Power 409 Catback to fit to the car allowing my Toda to be serviced. I’ve always wanted to try this exhaust, mainly as the way it sits, with its definitive ‘Jap’ style angled exit.

The HKS Hiper Muffler was inspired and designed from the Japanese endurance racing Scene. The Hiper Muffler offers greater flow and high RPM power gains due to a less restrictive Flow design. This is achieved by eliminating unnecessary bends to attain the straightest exhaust path.

SUH409 has other benefits such as being more resistant to thermal expansion aswell as the ability to absorb more sound than SUS304 which allows Hi-Power 409 mufflers to have a straight through design without fear of excessive noise. It sounds great on the car, with a very definitive not too loud ‘tuned’ tone. 

It’s always great to see car manufactures do something to incorporate their owners. Honda are brilliant for this, and there always seems to be opportunities to get involved with what their doing. This wednesday was no different, with Honda pushing the boundaries of ownership yet again and inviting owners to their institute. This is rumored to be the most advanced training facility of its kind in the UK, with all of Honda Europe operatives being trained here.

The day started at 10am, with a generous breakfast buffet laid on. A quick walk through into a meeting room and we were greeted by a representative of Mugen UK.  What a surprise and a great chance to hear what Mugen UK are currently doing and how they developed their prestigious ’Mugen Civic Type-R FN2′. Only twenty of these cars are being made (all sold within 10 minuntes apparently!) which, according to EVO magazine is the fastest FWD production car they have ever tested (Beating the Megane R26.R and Focus RS!).

Honda had a whole day planned and next was a tour of their workshop, showcasing nearly every Honda you could think of! Ranging from a very early Civic right the way through to Mugen’s latest variation on the Civic FN2. It was very hands on, with questions being welcomed as well as the opportunity to start/have a go with whatever machinery/equipment lay infront of us. Not only was the day about Honda’s cars, but plenty of bikes, generators, powerboat engines, quads and even a Formula 1 car were on display. They even demonstrated how the process of fault finding occurs at the dealership, allowing us to see the software and equipment used by Honda main dealers.

After a quick break for a buffet lunch, it was back out onto the workshop floor but this time to a ‘restricted access’ door. What is this? Honda and Mugen told us they had a surprise for us in store. A brand new car was to be unveiled to the public this Sunday (14/2/2010), and we were the first people allowed to see it. Not only that, but a chance to grab some photographs! It’s another take on the highly popular Civic Type-R FN2, boasting many defining features from Mugen. This time around, with no performance enhancing modifications (mostly aero) there is to be a production run of 200 cars, defining the name of the car, the ‘Mugen 200′. As you would of thought, the Mugen 200 comes in Honda’s Championship White with a different front and rear bumper, sideskirts, alloy wheels, limited slip differential and exhaust system. I’ve had to wait until Sunday to post this information in order to not conflict with Honda’s release of their new car. More pictures of the Mugen 200 can be found in the gallery.

Please feel free to click any of the images in this post, or here to be taken to a complete gallery of the day. High resolution images are available upon request, e-mail me for details.