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

I’ll be leaving in about 15 minutes for a nice 9 hour drive to Ann Arbor, MI where I’ll be picking up my new GTS Viper. Luckily, I have a good friend that goes to law school out there, so I’ll be spending a few days with her while I’m out there. She drove home (to MD) for Easter, and I’ll just be hitching a ride back with her…which saves me the plane ticket money. She only lives about 20 minutes from where the Viper is located.

I’ll be posting some updates throughout the week on how everything goes with the sale. I’ve done as much checking out as possible, and I’m confident that the deal is legitimate, and not a scam. My only concern now is rain/snow. The car has never seen rain before, and the forecast is rain/snow all week…just my luck. Maybe the weather Gods will be on the lookout for me. Here’s a bad lighting picture of the car I’ll be picking up:

Most people know Saleen for either their S7, or their special editions cars like the Saleen Mustang.

At the New York Auto Show, they unveiled their latest supercar, the S5S Raptor:

Saleen has done a great job with this car, I think it looks like a nice mix of a Lotus Elise, Tesla Roadster and Lamborghini Gallardo. I’d like to see it in person to see how small it really is…hopefully more like the Lambo over the Lotus (which the press release seems to say it is).

The Saleen S7 is priced well over $500,000, the new S5S Raptor is a much more reasonable $185,000. With a 5.0L 650hp 630 lb-ft of tq, the car is capable of doing 0-60 in just 3.2 seconds with a 200mph+ top speed…all while using E85 ethanol. It features 13″ rotors in the back, and massive 6-piston 15″ slotted rotors on the front:

I need to see it in person, but looks alone, I think I’d rather have this over a Lamborghini Gallardo…which was my previous upper $100k range favorite.

[Source: Autoblog]

There is a story going around about a guy under the alias of dooma350 at M3Post.com. He had given a deposit at his local BMW dealership (Husker BMW) for the sought after new 2008 M3, but decided to look and see what offerings he could find on eBay. He found one advertised as “LOWEST PRICE ON EBAY” that had a starting price of $60,000 with no reserve. The buy it now price was $66,926. Considering dealerships are marking these up as high as $100,000, they were probably under the impression that the eBay listing would generate a little hype and they wouldn’t have to be worried about the price staying at $60,000…which is exactly what happened when dooma350 won the auction.

15 minutes after winning the auction, he received a call from the BMW dealership in Nebraska saying that they would not honor the price due to it was a “mistake”. This was definitely a cop out, as the auction’s buy it now price was changed twice throughout the auction. This tells us that the auction was being watched by the dealership, and a “mistake” is pretty unlikely.

The entire story can be read and followed over at the original post on M3Post.com. Many of the forum members are very helpful, offering advices, contacting media outlets, and more. One member by the alias of “Xcellere” even called the dealership and threatened legal action. Another member who is a licensed attorney in Texas that offered some legal advice…and was even willing to take action at no cost had he been licensed in Nebraska.

All sorts of advice was given in terms of whom to contact, from BMW North America to eBay to the BBB to local media outlets. I think between this story starting to spread (It was just covered on Autoblog), dooma350 will get his price…and maybe even more. This is horrible PR on the dealerships part, as well as BMW. The dealership has already offered the car up for $3,000 lower than the MSRP price, but at this point, it’s not enough. The dealership may have lost a few thousand dollars by doing the right thing, but there is a great potential of losing a lot more than that by not.

Do you think that the dealership should have done the right thing? If they were really this hard pressed about not giving the $60,000 price, they should have either set a reserve on the auction, set the starting price higher, or worse…cancel the auction before it ended. They could have even tried to offer something up when they first said the auction was a “mistake”, instead of just saying it and ending it like that.

Let’s hope that dooma350 gets his M3 at the price he deserves it for. For now you can Digg the original Autoblog article here so that the story can get spread around even more.

This upcoming week of blog posts will have a car-related theme…so for all of you enthusiasts out there, stay tuned

I guess I was sort of an inspiration for 2 of my other friends with limited stock trading experience, as they both purchased some stock as well. After being down on the first day (from what I purchased it at), the stock jumped up over 14% today (including after-hours trading), making me about $230 on my $2,994 invested:

I’d say that’s a pretty good start I have been contemplating selling the shares and then buying again later. I have a feeling there will be a big selloff from the banks and people trying to make a quick buck, which will affect the stock price negatively. Overall I think it’s a safe long-term investment stock, so even with a selloff, I feel that it will stabilize and then start to trend upwards. From everything I’ve read, the opinions about what the stock will do are all over the place. From people saying it will go back down to the IPO price, to others saying it will go up to $70-$90. In reality, the stock market is a gamble. Do as much research as you can, learn what you can, see how news, etc affects other stocks, and use that to make a better judgment with your own stocks. I’m definitely no expert, my overall portfolio is down 30% (before Visa)…but just giving my two cents.

All I know is that I had a hunch about Google when they became an IPO. I put them in my fake portfolio at the $95/share, and now look where they are at. I’ve had Apple in my fake portfolio since their shares were $11.38….I would have a 1071.09% return on that right now! I have the same feeling about Visa, so this time I’m running with it. If you do the same thing, and are new to the market, just make sure you don’t invest more than you can afford to lose.

One other interesting thing I found is that many of the major credit card/bank companies went up pretty big today:

American Express: +9.48%
Discover: +10.26%
Mastercard: +5.75%
Capital One: +7.66%
Citigroup: +10.24%
HSBC: +3.01%
JP Morgan Chase & Co: +9.25%
Barclays: +7.26%
Bank of America: +8.56%

I wonder how Visa helped affect these?

Just curious if any of you guys are investing in today’s Visa IPO? The stock is up 35% from the opening IPO price as of writing this. I just bought $3,000 worth of shares at $59.75…I think the stock has a lot of potential.

I’m curious to know your thoughts on whether it’s a good buy or not…regardless if you invested or not. I’m pretty new to the stock market, so any advice is more than helpful.

Surprisingly I searched in Google last night and found that two of my sites (including this blog) now have the coveted sitelinks:

I think Google could have done a better job with the links, but I’ll take what I can get I wonder how they decide what goes in there. I could have sworn reading somewhere that you can adjust or suggest the links in Webmaster Tools, but I only see the option to block a link:

I also surprisingly realized that my page rank for this blog went away completely. I’m assuming Google penalized me for selling Text Link Ads on the sidebar. With my new design, I’ll be removing TLA, and will only be running text links that have a rel=nofollow. Hopefully Google will unpenalize (sp?) me then. Even though I have no page rank, it hasn’t really affected my traffic from Google. Here’s a chart of the past 30 days of Google (excluding Google Images) traffic:

I’ve recently been doing a lot of stuff to try and make money using the eBay affiliate program through Commission Junction. While I’m glad I’m really just in the beginning of using the program, it’s still going to be a huge pain. Since eBay is moving off of CJ, all of the affiliate links need to be updated. Imagine those with thousands of blog posts…starting May 1st, 2008, those old links won’t make money anymore unless they are updated.

There will be a couple of big benefits from all this though:

• Easy global registration to multiple countries simultaneously
• New, targeted banners and rich media creatives
• New landing page optimization and geo-targeting capabilities
• More detailed reporting capabilities for eBay??s programs
• eBay will be offering a 5% bonus for all traffic (through the new network) in April. For those that can migrate quickly, they will see the benefits

The last three could potentially be really good if eBay does it right. I’m always up for new, targeted banners if it can be tied into content better and can be more effective. I’m interested in seeing what they mean by new landing page optimization. Geo-targeting capabilities may be something really big that I’ll be able to use for an upcoming project I’m working on. One of the biggest things is more detailed reporting. I’ve always said that the reporting was too limited by Commission Junction, and hopefully eBay can make this right. Reporting can do a ton for a publisher to better optimize how they promote the affiliate network, which makes more money for eBay and the publisher.

Overall it seems like it will be a good thing, but a huge pain in the ass. If there is any way they can make old CJ links still work, they should do that. I don’t see how that wouldn’t be possible since the old links use the rover.ebay.com domain…it’s not like it’s a commission junction domain, it’s on their own domain! Just make the new ones a different non-rover.ebay.com and if there are some sort of less reporting or features from the old links, they’ll be able to separate them.

My other concern is auditing. Currently, Commission Junction is the middle-man…the third party to verify reporting and data is correct. I hope there is something in place to ensure everything is accurate.

You’ll be able to start migrating April 1st, 2008, and should be done by May 1st, 2008. Here’s the full e-mail I got:

Dear David Pitlyuk:

We are excited to announce eBay??s new global affiliate platform: the eBay Partner Network.

The new platform will go live on April 1st, 2008 PST, at which point eBay will no longer be running its affiliate program through Commission Junction. Beginning April 1st, affiliates should register with eBay Partner Network and migrate their links from CJ to the new platform.

While CJ and ValueClick have been valuable partners to eBay throughout the years, we??ve decided to give our affiliate community a customized experience for eBay affiliates.

All the great tools and benefits of working with the eBay program will remain the same ?? access to the Editor Kit and affiliate API, the flexible destination tool, the great payout structure. In addition, the eBay partner network will provide several new features:

• Easy global registration to multiple countries simultaneously
• New, targeted banners and rich media creatives
• New landing page optimization and geo-targeting capabilities
• More detailed reporting capabilities for eBay??s programs

The eBay Partner Network and Commission Junction will run in parallel for one month through this process, so please plan to complete your migration by May 1st, 2008.

You can receive an additional 5% bonus for all traffic tracked through eBay Partner Network in April 2008 (bonus applicable to traffic sent to Half.com and US, UK, Australia, Canada, Italy, India and Spain eBay sites). The sooner you migrate, the more you??ll earn! Just:

• Register with eBay Partner Network on April 1, 2008
• Confirm your registration, and obtain your new identifiers
• Update your links with your new identifiers.
• Reminder: Please plan to complete migration by May 1, 2008.

You will receive more information and step by step directions for the transition on April 1st. A special help desk to answer your questions about migration will also be available starting April 1st. You can find more details, including a list of programs that will be affected, at http://affiliates.ebay.com.

Thanks for being a valued partner. We??re excited for a successful transition, and the opportunity to grow your business through even more innovations, information and communication moving forward!

Sincerely,
eBay??s Affiliates Managers

A friend of mine told me about a demo day at Coleman Powersports to try out the 3-wheeled BRP Can-Am Spyder. For those that don’t know what it is, a picture tells all:

The Can-Am Spyder is like a mixture of a motorcycle, quad, and car…all in one. There is really nothing like it out there. The two wheels are in the front, allowing you to turn it without having to lean your body like a motorcycle. With a variety of stabilizers and traction controls and then some, it keeps the vehicle planted on the ground and giving it a surprising amount of traction. You could even consider it an all-weather motorcycle, as there are no traction issues with a wet road.

For the demo day, BRP brought over a bunch of the Spyders:

After taking a short survey and watching a video, they took us out onto a small course setup with cones. They showed us the basics of using the Spyder, and we took it out for a couple laps to get the hang of it. There is only a brake on the right foot, and the clutch works the same way as a regular motorcycle. There is an optional automatic option which is about $1,500. There is also a reverse functionality that you obviously won’t find on a motorcycle. If you can ride a motorcycle, you’ll get the hang of this right away…it’s very easy to ride. Here’s a shot of me going through the course:

After going through the coned course, we took it out on the open road, driving it around for a few miles. It was a real blast, and I actually enjoyed riding it a lot more than I thought I would. Taking corners were fun as you could really feel it compensating the weight differential. It’s fairly quick as well…faster than I thought it would be. There is a 110mph limiter, so you can definitely get it up there if you wanted to.

The company who makes the Spyder is the same company behind Sea-Doo, the popular maker of jet skis. The Spyder MSRP’s for $15,499, but they may actually be going for higher as the ones I see on eBay are mostly going for closer to $20,000. Prior to the test drive I would have never thought that I would actually want one. While I wouldn’t personally spend $15,000 on one…if I had a bunch of expendable income, I wouldn’t mind having a few of these to have some fun with friends. If you’re just interested in getting into motorcycles, but may not be ready or comfortable getting on two wheels…check this out at your local dealer, it just may be for you.