Here’s How The Honda Civic Type R ‘Ballot’ Keeps Things Fair

Not only expensive at RM399,900, early purchases of the Honda Civic Type R FL5 requires a little bit of luck too!

Earlier today, Honda Malaysia officially launched its much lauded and highly anticipated new ‘halo’ offering, by which we mean the sixth generation (FL5) Honda Civic Type R.

Besides the fact that this officially imported H-badged hot hatch offering has less power and specs than expected, both its princely RM399,900 asking price and hugely surprising ‘ballot’ sale scheme were the key talking points surround its launch too.

The latter is indeed very unusual as it’s not often that a major, high-volume carmaker such as Honda Malaysia actually chooses who gets to buy its products.

Both the relatively low 19-unit initial allocation and ultra-high global demand warranted Honda Malaysia to take special measures to sell the new Honda Civic Type R FL5.

Honda Malaysia elected to apply said sale scheme instead of the usual first-come, first-served means due to the combination of two factors. The first is the relatively low 19-unit allocation of the 2023 model year run given by its principals, and the second being the model’s unexpected and ultra-high demand worldwide.

How the ballot works is simple. Prospecting customers can place their deposits and their names for the ballot at any Honda dealer starting today. However, the eventual 19 names will only be picked out from said ballot by Honda Malaysia management.

CariCarz.com has understood the latter process will be done internally in an audit-compliant manner. Certainly, said ‘audit-compliant’ promise is clear a deterrent against any parties involved from using any unfair advantages or practices to either secure and or fast-track orders.

While not the best way to sell the new Type R, we cannot argue that this 'ballot' sale scheme is indeed very fair.

While this may not be the best means of sale, it’s arguably the fairest way to decide who gets first dibs on the initial 19 units of the new Civic Type R allocated locally for this year. In other words, you don’t just need a lot of money, you’ll also need an equal wealth of luck in getting chosen through this ballot.

The good news here is that this ballot sale scheme will only be applied for this initial 19-unit allocation of the made-in-2023 model. Honda Malaysia indicates that more units will be allocated for Malaysia next year (2024), but the firm didn’t mention any specific numbers.

Find out more about the new Honda Civic Type R FL5 from our launch report by clicking these blue words…