Honda is big into racing. The Japanese automaker competes in numerous forms of motorsport around the world, from IndyCars to Superbikes, Le Mans prototypes to Baja off-road racing and from Super GT (where it recently debuted the new CR-Z GT) to the World Touring Car Championship. That's where the Japanese team fields a racing version of the new European-spec Civic hatchback, and to celebrate that effort, Honda's Swiss subsidiary has launched the special edition you see here, pictured alongside its inspiration.

The Honda Civic 2.2 i-DTEC WTCC packs a 2.2-liter turbo four with 150 horsepower, a six-speed manual transmission, KW suspension, 17-inch powder-coated OZ Racing Superturismo wheels and, as you can see from these photos, a paint scheme derived from the WTCC car's race livery. The team's star drivers Tiago Monteiro and Gabriele Tarquini - former F1 drivers both - recently sampled the special edition road car at the Slovakia Ring race track during a WTCC test session. Offered exclusively through Honda Switzerland, the special-edition Civic carries a price tag of 31,900 Swiss Francs, equivalent to about $34k in US dollars.