1997 Honda Accord Article at Automotive.com

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Below is an enthusiast article written by the automotive experts at Super Street. At the end of the 1997 season, North American Super Touring died a sudden death when Chrysler pulled out of the circuit, ending something that continues to thrive all over Europe and Japan. So what if the Super Touring cars aren’t as high-tech as F1 cars

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IntelliChoice Value Rating

The chart above shows the purchase price versus ownership cost for each car from a specific vehicle class. The cars with better than average ownership cost/purchase price correlations are the best values, and these best value cars are represented by the dots below the curve. (i.e. the cars that have a lower ownership cost compared to its purchase price.) Those cars, which are worse than average or poor values, appear above the curve.

One way to view the graph is to draw a vertical line through any purchase price. You may see several dots that fall on this line - each of which is a car with a similar purchase price. However, notice the difference in ownership costs of each car represented by the vertical position of the dot. Two cars with the same purchase price can have thousands of dollars difference in ownership costs. This is what separates "good value" cars from "poor value" cars.

What is a good car value?

A "good car value" is one whose cost to own and operate is less than expected. The lower the cost to own and operate a car compared to what is expected, the better the value of that car.

But how do we know a car's "expected cost"?

For each car in the class, IntelliChoice plots the car's purchase price against the total five-year cost to own and operate it as determined by IntelliChoice research. Each dot on the above chart represents a specific car. Generally, we find that as the purchase price of the car increases, the cost to own and operate that car increases. This is why the dots on the graph tend to rise upward and to the right. This phenomenon also makes intuitive sense - as the purchase price rises, financing costs tend to rise, as do insurance, depreciation, taxes, and most other car ownership costs.

This is an important concept. It's normal for car ownership costs to rise as purchase price rises. Therefore, we can't just establish one "average" ownership cost number for each class, since cars in the class have different purchase prices. (This is why the "Relative" shown on each chart is different for cars in the same car class.)

Using statistical techniques, IntelliChoice "connects the dots" to form a curve that defines, for this car class, the relationship between the car's purchase price and car's ownership costs. This curve is our "expected cost" curve. The curve defines, for any car in the class, the five-year ownership cost that we would expect to see at each possible purchase price. If every car in the class were an average value, then all the dots would fall exactly on the curve. However, it's rare that any dot is exactly on the curve. Some dots are a little higher or lower, and some are a lot higher or lower. The dots that are a little lower are better than average car values, while the dots that are a lot lower are excellent car values (A dot that is a lot lower than the curve has ownership costs much lower than expected for a car of its purchase price). Conversely, a dot a little higher than the curve is a poorer than average car value, while a dot that is much higher than the curve is a poor car value.

Value is a relative term, not an absolute term. It is performing better than the logical expectation.

So is a Mercedes-Benz E320 expensive to own and operate? Certainly in an absolute sense. Most other cars cost less. But, when its cost to own and operate is plotted against cars with comparable invoice prices, the E320 costs less. So the E320 is not expensive to own and operate - it is a good car value. The Mercedes does not have low ownership costs, but it has low ownership costs for its invoice price.

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Article From Super Street Magazine

1997 Honda Accord SE

All-American Accord / By Richard S. Chang / photographer: Wes Allison
/ Article provided by: Super Street Magazine

At the end of the 1997 season, North American Super Touring died a sudden death when Chrysler pulled out of the circuit, ending something that continues to thrive all over Europe and Japan. So what if the Super Touring cars aren’t as high-tech as F1 cars nor as fast as NASCAR V-8s. So what if the driver field was stocked with low-profile names and unproven CART racers. There is something inherently awesome in a 2.0L four-door showroom Accord equipped with a six-speed sequential shift going 160 mph through the silky back stretch of Laguna Seca.

That is the coolest aspect of Super Touring: Race teams must use real production vehicles as their platforms. Though the engines are buffed up to 300-plus hp and moved way down and back in the chassis, they must be from a model in the manufacturer’s car line with a 2,500 production minimum, and displacement cannot exceed two liters. That means speed and brute force carry equal—if not less—weight as the suspension, brakes, and overall driving skill. So, Super Touring cars really represent everything we long for in an everyday driver. And despite our universal aspirations to be the baddest and the fastest, they could be considered the best breed of racer to emulate. That is what Tracy Robison did to his ’97 Accord.

This car is all about swerves and French curves. The suspension is stiffer than Pamela Anderson’s bare fakies in the middle of a New England ice storm and is prepped with InTrax A.R.S. coilover struts and shocks, which are adjustable, offering Tracy a wide range of ride heights with a steep and deep max-out drop of 3 inches. A DC Sports billet strut tower brace, Suspension Techniques antisway bars, and Prothane polyurethane bushings add support and stiffness, while an Auto Power rollbar helps to stiffen the chassis. Eighteen-inch American Racing Pinzettis (duh) and sticky 225/40ZR18 Yokohama AVS S1s garnish the four corners, and it would take a trail as tricky as the Riddler’s Revenge to make this bad boy land on its back. An impossibility.

But what’s a Super Touring car without oversized stoppers flashing through the blurred spokes of spinning powdercoating? Little more than a month without weekends, right? That’s why Tracy swapped massive 13-inch Baer brakes into the front and 12-inchers into the rear. Now, those aren’t just brakes, they’re neck-snapping gut-wrenching torture discs. Seatbelts are an imperative when riding shotgun with Tracy, because going from speed to bleed can happen faster than you can say world’s fastest one point five.

Though the F22B1 powerplant sits in its assembly line position and without the power adders characteristic of a real deal Super Touring racer, this Accord does have a 100-shot Nitrous Express wet system. That’s something you won’t find on the AMP Bathurst 1000, and though it probably won’t impress the hell out of Randy Pobst, it’s easy and instant passing power for a motor that can only boast of simple bolt-ons: AEM pulleys and cam gear, a DC Sports header and polished stainless steel exhaust, and a K&N intake. These offer only minor horsepower gains at best, but it’s easy to see why Tracy doesn’t want to be dogfighting Z.Team YOSSi on the freeway.

The exterior is a dead-on reproduction of a Honda Super Touring race car. Wings West ground effects (with a custom front grille) and wing, clear corners, PIAA 1000 Diachroic driving lights, the paint, and vinyl graphics by Modern Image put together this life-size model. All that’s missing is an on-board air jack.

For the inside of the car, Tracy once again opted against authenticity and went with drivability. Instead of gutting the interior and relocating the steering wheel to the center (wuss), he fitted the car with more creature comforts than the HKS suite at SEMA. We’re exaggerating, of course. There aren’t any Frigidaires filled with Coors Light, topless Polynesian hula girls, or prancing chimpanzees. What you will find inside this car is leather upholstery and a mobile home-entertainment system. Here are just some of the highlights: Clarion tuner with monitor (VRX 8271), six-disc CD changer (CDC 635), and video cassette player (VDH 9300); Infinity Kappa series amp and speakers; and Scosche EFX four-gauge power cables. As our Max Power cohorts in the U.K. would say: “That’s bloody bloomin’ buggery ICE. Cheers. Now torch my fag, and let’s take the tube to Wembley.”