Category Archives: Cool Cars

Joey Logano Crash At Dover In Home Depot Car

Audi R8 1Hey Cool Car Fans,

In case you missed the video of this crash that took place at the Dover racetrack this weekend, I thought I would post it here for you to check out at CoolCarGuy.com

Joey Logano, who is only 19 years old, crashed and flipped his Home Depot car eight times in the second race of the Sprint Cup chase at Dover.  What’s amazing is that he came out walking and was fine after the crash, which is a testimony to the technology that has gone into these race cars now.

Personally, I believe that God was watching out over this young man, somebody was praying for him because bad accidents don’t always end this positive where someone can walk away from their car after flipping over multiple times at high speed on the racetrack.

He said, “it was the wildest ride I’ve ever been on” and you can see from the video that it’s a ride nobody would want to be on and he’s grateful to be alive.

What’s ironic is that Tony Stewart was right behind him and bumped the No. 20 car during the race that set off the accident.  Stewart was driving the Home Depot car just last year and Joey Logano took it over this year.

Stewart now endorses Burger King and he apologized. He was pretty upset about the incident when he was interviewed over his in-car radio by the ESPN booth. “I wish I would have saw that coming,” said Stewart. “I don’t know how to say sorry enough to Joey.”

The reality is that accidents can happen at 150 plus mph and NASCAR driver’s, along with their fans, understand that is the danger of this extremely popular racing sport.

Even if you’re not a NASCAR fan, you’ll still find this video quite incredible.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kHKvvKCVvw[/youtube]

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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

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The Bugatti Veyron Top Gear Fastest Car In The World Video

Audi R8 1Hey Cool Car Fans,

One of my friends pointed out to me today that I have turned a number of people on to one of the coolest videos on YouTube that you’ll ever see. It’s about the world’s fastest road car the Bugatti Veyron, but that I didn’t actually have the video or even an article about the car on CoolCarGuy.com.

Needless to say, I took a bit of a verbal lashing for that, so i figured I had better stop that immediately and make sure that I got the video up here for visitors to checkout.  I’ll put it at the bottom of this article and it’s from the show Top Gear when they had a chance to test this vehicle out on VW’s top secret test track in Germany.

The video is about 10 minutes long, but it is totally worth taking 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to watch it.  Even if you’ve seen it before, it’s over-the-top fantastic.  Probably the coolest car ever built for the road, but let me clarify that statement.

A few months ago, I was playing golf with some chaps from California. My friend Walt, had invited me to play in a charity golf tournament for the American Cancer Society at Pradera, a fantastic golf course I might add, and we had our picture taken with the coach of the Denver Nuggets, George Karl, who was there.  I don’t remember what hole we were on, but it was one of those deals where you could win a car for a hole in one or something like that and he spotted me as I came up since I was wearing one of my usual CoolCarGuy.com shirts.

He said, “CoolCarGuy.com, so you’re The Cool Car Guy?  Okay, Cool Car Guy, what’s the coolest car?” You know, when you have about ten seconds to respond to a question that everyone is waiting for you to answer, it was one of those moments, but I was ready.  After all, I am The Cool Car Guy.

Audi R8 2Without missing a beat I said, “The Audi R8.” and everyone in my party looked kind of puzzled at me.  Come on, everyone has their favorite cars. As The Cool Car Guy I try to be an agnostic when it comes to cars because a cool car is really whatever is cool to you.  I actually tell people that all the time, “Whatever is cool to you makes it a cool car.”, but he asked me the question and I love cars – period, end of story.  The Audi R8 is one of those cars that is an engineering marvel and an incredible piece of machinery for the money, complete with carbon fiber and lots of super cool sex appeal.

However, I was also trying to think of a really cool car that I actually see around as well, like a Porsche 911 for example that is the R8 competitor. Not that there are not other super cool cars, from a variety of manufacturer’s, including the Nissan GT-R, which is another favorite of mine for the money, but I was thinking of cars that I actually see and go “I want to drive that!”.  Rarely, but once in a while I will see the Audi R8. And when you do see one, you say to the person next to you, “Wow.  That’s a cool car!” thinking it must have cost around $200,000 plus because it looks like it did.

The R8 is a car that starts for under $125,000 retail, actually starting at $114,200 for 2010, but they can go up from there and it can go from 0-60 in 4.4 seconds, with a top speed of 187mph, it averages 15 mpg with over 420hp and it looks like an extremely cool car.  You would expect a pro-athlete to own one of these just for kicks on their days off.  That would be the Audi R8.  I know, it’s not a Corvette, Viper, Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus, or any number of the American Muscle cars, that came to mind, but if you watch the video at the end of this article, you’ll see the reason why I picked this baby.

George looked at me, laughed and said, “An Audi. I thought only women drove Audi’s.” .  Which was pretty darn funny and everyone laughed at my expense, including me.  He was definitely a funny guy and I walked right into that one with my answer. I started thinking, “I don’t think he has had any of his players pull up in one yet and offer to take him for a ride.  If he did, he might have a different opinion of the Audi R8.  Maybe one of his players should call me and I’ll get them one.” At which point, it was my turn to hit the ball and to make matters worse, I followed it up with a less than cool shot off the tee box.  It was memorable though, which is why I decided to bring it up in this article about the Bugatti Veyron.

Now, in fairness to Coach Karl, the absolute coolest car made is definitely the Bugatti Veyron, but I’ve never driven down the road and seen one pull up next to me since they are $1.7 million.  So, I couldn’t really say that was the coolest car to the coach of the Nuggets because nobody actually drives them, except on shows like Top Gear in the video I’m posting here.  Even though, it’s without a doubt the most incredible car ever built for the road!  Just watch the video and you’ll see why.

However, the photos of this Audi R8 were taken recently in Castle Pines where I was going in to see my client at his jewelry store about his Mini-Cooper I sold.  Across the street, sitting in the parking lot was this super cool Audi R8 and I walked over and snapped a couple photos to put up here at CoolCarGuy.com.  Yes, it’s an Audi.  Enjoy the videos.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaENG1vt6-Y[/youtube] [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO0PgyPWE3o[/youtube]

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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

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Is GM Desperate Or What?

Renault 5 TurboHey Cool Car Fans,

I have to get some photos up here of my new 2007 Mazda MazdaSpeed6 that I picked up as my daily driver, after selling my 2007 Subaru WRX Limited to a client of mine.  Stay tuned for photos and details on that vehicle.

In the meantime, I had to write a quick article about the craziest PR move I’ve seen in a long time.  General Motors is now going to offer a 60 day money back guarantee.  If you’re not completely satisfied with the purchase of your vehicle they will give you your money back.  I saw this was first reported by the New York Times that General Motors wanted to prove to the world that their vehicles are as good as their competitors.  I didn’t believe it at first, but it’s for real.

Talk about a desperate attempt to get more people behind the wheel of a GM product.  They are calling it a Satisfaction Guaranteed program that is promising to give customers their money back within 60 days, if they’re not completely satisfied with their purchase. The new marketing tool, started running today and will start tomorrow.  I saw the commercials while I was watching football today and it will run from September 14, 2009 through November 30th, 2009.

This is the first time a major automaker has backed their product with a money back guarantee. The new initiative will cover new Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC models.  I’m amazed that they would do something like this because it’s going to cause tremendous problems in the marketplace and for the company because of the fine print, details and limitations.  Come on, everyone knows that you buy a vehicle and you can’t return it for a number of liability reasons.  Cars are simply not designed to buy with money back guarantees because too many things can go wrong depending on the person behind the wheel and I’m going to bet that many people are going to be really unhappy with this deal.

If you don’t believe me, you’ll have to go read the FAQ page and see the details and limitations.

For example, you have to keep the vehicle for at least 30 days, return it within day 31 and day 60 by contacting the administrator of the program for the required paperwork.  You then must have the vehicle appraised and if there is at least $200 in damage you won’t qualify for a refund.  The refund doesn’t include dealer fees, accessories, finance charges and a number of other fees.  You can’t get your trade-in back and you are responsible for any negative equity you may have had on that vehicle.  You can have up to 4,000 miles on the vehicle.  You can’t do this deal if you’re looking for a truck for your business, but only for personal purchases.

This program may be good for some people who are in a strong financial position and just want to drive a GM vehicle for 60 days to see how they like it.  Odds are good they’ll keep it and that’s what GM is banking on with this promotion.  However, you might want to just rent a GM vehicle before you go through this ordeal.  How many people will go through the brain damage of trading their vehicle, getting financed, drive the car for 4,000 miles and then return it because they decided they don’t really like it?  If they decide to and they find out they don’t qualify for this 60 day guarantee for some reason, what’s going to be the PR backlash against GM when dealers start refusing to take back vehicles or not refunding certain fees?

You can read the full details, including the FAQ’s by clicking here.

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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

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What About The LeCar

Renault 5 TurboHey Cool Car Fans,

One of our visitors to CoolCarGuy.com sent me a video the other day and asked me if I would write something up about the LeCar, also known as the Renault 5. I figured, what the heck, especially when I found this really cool photo of one tricked out as a race car with a turbo from a race back in 2005.

Actually, a friend of mine in High School, Brent Niccum, owned one of these little cars and none of his friends, including me, could believe he bought it. Brent was 6 foot 4 inches tall and on the basketball team, so when he drove around this little car, it was like putting him in a go-cart and it looked like a clown show when he got out of the car.

I road in it many times with Brent and I have to admit that it was a pretty reliable little piece of machinery and fun to drive. I don’t remember him having too many problems with it and he really liked it. I’m surprised that Renault hasn’t brought it back into the U.S. Market with the recent four dollar gas hike we experienced last year. However, with it’s 44% stake in Nissan, they did come out with the fuel efficient Nissan Versa as a fuel efficient ride a few years ago. I’ve helped a couple of my clients get those vehicles and they really like them, you can even tow them behind a motor home, which is what one of my clients uses it for.

Renault made the first generation of the LeCar from 1972 – 1984, which is what Brent owned. About 1,300 AMC dealers at the time marketed them and American Motors (AMC) called it LeCar instead of Renault 5. It was designed to compete with the VW Rabbit and the tiny Honda Civic. Then in 1985 – 1996 they rolled out the second generation with a transversely-mounted powertrain taken from the 9 and 11 and a set of MacPherson Struts to beef up the suspension. I’m not sure that it actually did, but that was apparently the idea.

In the U.S. it featured a 1397 cc I4 engine that produced 55 hp, and a floor-mounted shifter was substituted for the dash-mounted unit. By 1977 it was popular among sports car enthusiasts and destined to become a classic. I found an ad that was pretty cool, since they dubbed it as Le Sports Car at the time. You can see it by clicking here.

Here’s the commercial I mentioned…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V0mRvh14Wc[/youtube]

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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

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The New Mercedes Benz E-Class Commerical Is Super Cool

Hey Cool Car Fans,

eclasscoupeI was watching the PGA Championship today with Tiger Woods and Y.E. Yang battle it out when a commercial for the new Mercedes Benz E-Class Coupe came on.

It’s so cool that I had to track it down and post it here at CoolCarGuy.com. The car is awesome and the commercial pretty much says it all.

The new E-class is fantastic, especially as a coupe with a really neat look to it and I’m sure it will be a huge seller for Mercedes Benz as a competitor for BMW’s coupe.

Mercedes put a pretty wild website together showcasing the car with some super models as well that you can checkout by clicking here.  It’s kind of strange, but something different you haven’t seen before.

Here’s the commercial…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiNtc29j6rY[/youtube]
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John Boyd

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

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