Francis Bourgeois may be best known as the person largely responsible for making trainspotting cool through his TikTok and Instagram videos on the subject, but trains aren’t the only vehicles he enjoys. Recently, his pink 2003 Honda Jazz (known as the Fit in North America and Japan) has been an ever-greater presence in his content, and now, if any further proof was needed that he’s one of us, he’s gone and turned it into a sleeper build with Civic Type R power.
Bourgeois took the Jazz to Essex-based Carnaby Motors, ostensibly with the aim of getting some major underbody rot sorted out. What emerged, though, wasn’t just a rust-free Jazz, but one with its standard 1.3-litre, 81bhp four-cylinder (for some reason badged as a 1.4 in Europe) swapped out for the raspy 2.0-litre, VTEC-equipped K20A unit from an EP3 Civic Type R.
Assuming it’s a stock engine, that means 197bhp in a car that barely tips the scales at over a tonne, which should provide it with serious hot hatch baiting performance. There’s an aftermarket exhaust too, plus wider tyres – although they’re still the smallest Michelin Pilot Sports available – and lowering springs. As a final touch, the K20’s rocker cover has been colour-matched to the car’s pink paint – official ‘Iris Red Pearl’. The interior is largely stock, but has been treated to a Type R gearknob.
This is far from the first piece of evidence that Bourgeois is as much of a petrolhead as he is a… steamhead? Last year, he and Chris Harris proved an unexpected but wholesome presenting duo in a pair of videos, one of which saw them chase down a steam train in a Mercedes CLK DTM Cabriolet.
K20-swapped Honda Jazz – engine bay
Not only that, but in a highly surprising rumour that emerged earlier this year, Bourgeois was tipped as one of the names being lined up to succeed Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May as a presenter on The Grand Tour. If that does indeed happen, it hopefully means a lot more screen time for this particularly jazzy Jazz.
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