Dozens of factory-production sports cars and supercars are hyperbolically referred to as race cars for the road. Some of them are so quick that they set lap records or so fancy that their paint jobs take weeks of meticulous attention. Still, none of them can claim to be actual race cars. Now Honda will let you get into that super exclusive club behind the wheel of a Civic Si that costs US$ 55,000.

Starting in November of this year, Honda Performance Division (HPD) will have its first batch of 2022 Civic Si FE1 race cars ready for customers. With such a low price you might be fooled into thinking that these cars aren’t all that competitive but you’d be wrong. This same type of car has already won a pair of races among many other podium finishes this year in Touring Car America (TCA) competition.

 

While the FE1 race car version of the Civic Si shares its powertrain with the road car, it does feature a tougher six-speed manual transmission including a strengthened 4th gear. Each unit is also devoid of road car features like the sunroof, soundproofing, insulation, seam sealer, and underbody coating in an effort to save weight. All of that effort results in a car that weighs some 1,179 kg, or about 181 kg less than the street car.

Honda doesn’t say exactly how much power this little car makes but consider this, they add a full turbo-back Borla exhaust and an “HPD Performance-tuned production-based ECU”. From what we know about how tuning works, we’d be shocked if the racecar didn’t make more power than the 201-hp street-legal Civic Si. In fact, Honda does say that the car features selectable power levels.

Other notable improvements include a Cusco racing limited-slip differential, Bilstein inverted double-adjustment dampers, Wilwood 6-piston Superlite race calipers, and Wilwood 2-piece slotted floating rotors on the front. Of course, an FIA-spec roll cage is included as well. Every car will come out of the same HPD factory in Marysville, Ohio, where the NSX is built. If you’ve had the itch to own a real race car this might be one of the cheapest ways.