One of my good friends is in a bit of a conundrum. He wants to spend around $70,000 on a new car, wants a higher-end luxury brand, and it has to be a convertible with back seats. I automatically thought…BMW 335i twin-turbo convertible. Done. He doesn’t want a BMW though! There really aren’t many choices, and it was narrowed down to these:

• BMW 335i
• Mercedes CLK550
• Audi S4
• Lexus SC430

Those were pretty much the only ones I could think of. The CLK550 was my friends top choice, so we decided to stop by the dealership on Saturday to give it a look. It turned out that he didn’t like it as much in person as he thought he would…back at square one. While wandering around, Smart opened a new dealership right next door…I’ve seen these in Europe years ago, but wow, they are so small:

We then headed over to the Aston Martin dealership as I was trying to convince my friend to spend a bit more They had a ton of cars in stock, but here’s a couple from the showroom:

One of the Vantage’s outside had Bamboo interior, it was very exotic looking…I wish I took a picture, but here’s one I found online:

They also had a gorgeous Ferrari F360 Spyder (which is my first dream Ferrari) in the showroom:

I convinced my buddy we should check out the Audi S4, as well as the RS4, so it was off to the Audi/Porsche dealership across the street. They had a beautiful RS4 convertible in the showroom:

The Audi RS4 is a beast of a car. It has the same motor as the R8 supercar, pumping out 420hp on an AWD car. My buddy really liked it, and although it had a $85,000 price tag, I could still see him getting it. He wanted to compare to the slower S4 cabriolet, which they had back in the warehouse:

On the walk to see the S4, I was talking to the salesperson about the R8…which I had yet to see in person. As we were walking back he asks me if I’d like to see an R8…”of course”. Then he brings us to a warehouse, all I can say is JACKPOT. The pictures will tell enough:

The warehouse was full of cars like Lamborghini’s, Aston Martin’s, Porsche’s, etc. Literally millions of dollars of inventory. I felt like it was something straight out of the “Gone In 60 Seconds” movie. This was also the first time I got a chance to see the R8 in person, and wow, what a great looking car:

The Lamborghini Gallardo wasn’t too shabby either:

All in all, a great day to go car shopping