David Pitlyuk

Back in May I wrote an article on how to get paid to drive a Dodge Viper for free for the summer. While I ended up having the car for quite a bit more time then just the summer, I still got paid to drive it I officially sold the car a few weeks ago (which is why I picked up the Corvette), and without getting into any actual numbers, I can say that after buying the car, paying all of the taxes registration, title, gas, insurance, etc…I ended up with about $1,000 profit. Who wouldn’t take a Dodge Viper supercar for 6 months or so, and get paid $1,000 to do so?

I will say this though, I only put about 1,500 miles on the car, but it was a blast! Even though I made $1,000, the new owner still got a decent deal on a pristine 94 Viper with only 16,300 miles on it. If you play your cards right, you could technically do this with any car (although it is a lot of work sometimes).

Now that I’ve had some time with the Vette, I’m actually starting to miss the Viper. While the Viper was on my list of dream cars to own one day, my actual dream Viper is a 96-97 blue GTS (hard-top) with white stripes. I’ve recently put the Corvette up for sale (no hardcore selling, but if it sells, I’ll sell it), and hope to profit about $1,000-$3,000 on it. For a 97 with only 36,000 miles on it, I should have no problem getting $500-$1,000 more than I paid at the minimum. Once that’s sold, I think I will start to seriously look for my dream Viper (They normally range in the $40,000-$50,000 range), and hopefully pick one up. I’ve already starting my search, but I don’t want to jump on anything until the Vette is gone.

The main differences between the Viper I had an the GTS I want are the following:

• The color/stripes! This is my dream Viper combo
• 450hp compared the 94 which had 400hp
• Much nicer/updated interior. Let’s just say the 94 Viper interior needs some work…although it was cool back in 94
• Much more practical. With actual windows and a button for the doors, it’s a much more practical car. Although who cares about practicality with a Viper?
• The hood scoops! This 2nd generation Viper has a hood scoop and two gills on the hood. It makes it look much more aggressive in my opinion.
• The back of the GTS is just way sexier. I love the way everything is molded into the back, and am actually not too big of a fan of the rear of the RT/10.
• The RT/10 I had was convertible, which I will definitely miss
• The 1st generation Viper that I had, had side pipes. This means that the exhaust pipes came out of the side of the car…a very exotic thing. The GTS has the exhaust come out of the middle of the back of the car. While it still looks cool, side pipes were neat.
• There are a bunch of other differences, but the above are the major ones that affect me

A used 1st generation/2nd generation Viper is a great supercar to get if you can afford it. The car does not depreciate very much at this point in time. So if you want to drive a car that turns every head, and is a blast to drive, but don’t want to spend too much money over time…the Viper is your answer. There are a couple new reasons why the value of the Viper will either depreciate at an even slower rate, or may even go up.

There is a very good chance the 2011 will be the last year that Dodge makes a Viper. Dodge has already stopped making a lot of the parts for older Vipers, and there is some word that they will stop all together in 2011. My thoughts are that this should help out the value of Vipers already out there. That and the fact that they are so rare already will help out with keeping the price you paid up there. Remember, there are more Corvettes made and sold in one year than Vipers have ever been made since they started in 1993.

For those of you that have not yet heard of the new Nissan GT-R, it’s time to take a look:

This is the first time that the GT-R has ever been brought to the US, and there are a lot of enthusiasts that are unbelievably excited about it. Only 2,500 will be brought in the first year (2009), and with a base price of only $69,850, you can bet that dealers will be marking them up beyond belief. What is there to get so excited about? The $70,000 Nissan will beat a Porsche 911 on the track. A 911 can easily cost of 2-3 times the price of the GT-R!

The GT-R has a 3.8L V6 with a pair of turbos boosting the car to 473hp and 433 ft-lb tq. Did I mention it is all wheel drive, does 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, runs the quarter mile in 11.7 seconds and gets 21mpg? That’s something to get excited about.

Autocar did a comparison video between the new e92 BMW m3, the Porsche 911 GT3 (which they believe is the best Porsche 911 ever made), and the 2009 Nissan GT-R. What did they find? I think the title to this post gives it away. Check out the videos:

I have two good friends that are planning to pick up 1 of the 1600 being brought to the US…I’m crossing my fingers that they get one so I can get a test drive. You can bet I’ll make a post on that if they do!

For some time I had been talking about picking up a new generation C6 Chevrolet Corvette as my next “fun car”.  Last week I found out that the Viper will be sold this week, and I started getting the itch for something new…I don’t want to have just the Accord for an option :)  I decided to spend half the price and a get a C5 (1997) so I wasn’t tying up so much money:

I found the car locally on Craigslist.  The car only has 35,000 miles on it, which means it has only been driven 3,500 miles per year on average.  It was definitely owned by an enthusiast, who got the car with 3,000 miles, had it garage kept under a car cover next to a 68′ Camaro.  The owners manual had all of the maintenance records in it…the car was obviously taken care of extremely well, and with the right price, it was a perfect buy!

The car has a few modifications done to it already, which bump the horsepower up pretty significantly:

•  Z06 Clutch Assembly
• Dynomax Ultra Flow Exhaust
• BBK Shorty Headers
• WCC X-Pipe
• Vortex Ram Air
• Modified Throttle Body
• BBK SSI Intake Manifold
• Adjustable Fuel Pressure Regulator
• Upgraded Wheels
• B&M Short Throw Shifter

On top of that, the car is fully loaded with cool things like an adjustable suspension.  Take a look at all the fun toys in the household at the moment:

For the full list of my progression of vehicles, take a look at my progression of vehicles post.

My business partner for Tri Megatech drives a Subaru STI when he’s not managing or setting up a network. He sent me a video this morning which I thought was worthy of sharing with you guys…they take a Subaru STI out snowboarding…you just have to watch and see:

This should have been an ad for the Super Bowl, I wanted to go out and buy an STI after seeing it. Eric took his STI snowboarding with us last a couple weekends ago, here’s his with the snowboard rack:

Here’s a video I did back in college featuring a buddy’s WRX tearing it up through the snow:

Readers of my blog will know that I’m a huge car person, you can see my own progression of vehicles here. I’ll add my current stable of vehicles to the bottom of this post for new readers that are interested. I believe that cars can be an inspiring thing for other entrepreneurs (at least they inspire me), so I wanted to see what some of the top bloggers on the net have in their garage. I got in touch with a bunch of bloggers, and while not everybody responded, many did (for those that didn’t, contact me and maybe I’ll be able to do a part 2!). What I found is that many of the bloggers, even the ones that have a high net worth, don’t really drive anything insanely impressive…a few don’t even have a car. While seeing a top blogger driving around in a Ferrari is inspiring, it’s also inspiring to see some of these guys not have anything special.

On with the list:

John Chow

John Chow dot com

Current Car: Acura TL

If you had to buy a new car today, what would it be: Porsche Carrera GT

What would you drive if money was no object: Chevy Volt

Jeremy Schoemaker

ShoeMoney

Current Car: H2 Hummer

If you had to buy a new car today, what would it be: I just went yesterday and looked at the 2008 h2. I do 1 payment 2 year leases and mine will be up this may.

What would you drive if money was no object: I would still drive a h2. I live in Nebraska (land of monster snow drifts) and it comes in handy to have a full time 4wd vehicle that I can also help other people with.

(more…)

I’m back from Vegas, unfortunately internet access wasn’t as accessible as I had hoped (nor did I have much spare time!).  Vegas was a great time with pretty much non-stop action and little sleep.  We arrived on Sunday, and headed over to Bellagio to see the O Cirque De Soliel show after checking in.  The show was very impressive, especially the stage which went from a regular stage to a pool in seconds.

Later that night we headed over the Absolut Vodka penthouse suite in Caesars Palace for John Chow’s CES kickoff party.  While I’ve known John for about 10 years now, this was actually the first time I ever met him.  We ended up getting their almost 2 hours late, and by that time John was pretty trashed…he didn’t realize who I was until the second time I introduced myself lol.

The room was awesome, with different themes in each bedroom.  For anybody that went there, you would have noticed a variety of banners as well as a couple vendor setups around the room.  That’s how you make an expensive party free :)   This was one of the setups from NZXT for example:

The next day we went to CES.  We ended up going to the smaller portion of the show at the Sands convention center and weren’t that impressed.  That night we went out to Jet Nighclub in the Mirage.  That’s always good times as always, if you go, I recommend getting there early unless you have some sort of connection.

I know the picture looks like there are only guys there, but rest assured, the girls are inside

The last full day we were there we went to the big portion of CES, which turned out to be much better.  I wish we had done that for both days!  We tried to pack in as much of the show as we could in one day, which is not nearly enough time.  Here’s a few of my favorite things:

This is a Pioneer Kuro (the new name for the high-end elite series) concept which was just ridiculously flat:

If you know me, you’ll know that you can probably find me in the automotive car entertainment section of the show.  That’s where you’ll find all the cool cars, cool car gadgets, and hottest booth babes.  In there you’d have found a Hummer with 30″ wheels with a ridiculous dish.  Pictures don’t really do justice, but for comparison sake see how big the lip is with a $100 bill on it:

For those of you that haven’t heard of the Tesla Roadster, it’s a 100% electric sportscar that does 0-60 in under 4 seconds.  I haven’t seen one yet, but luckily the Blaupunkt booth had one:

I didn’t grab a picture, but it was cool to see the Optimus Maximus keyboard which features all programmable OLED keys.

I didn’t have much time to do any gambling, I only pretty much played roulette for about 15-30 minutes at a time every now and then.  Luckily I was able to walk away from Vegas up $150 or so…while only putting $20 on the roulette table at one time.  I should be going to Atlantic City on Friday, so I’ll have some time to actually do a little gambling and hopefully play some poker.  All in all, Vegas was a great success for a first time visit, and I hope to be back again soon.

The new BMW E92 M3 that I wrote about back in April is finally coming out soon! Who better to drive it then the guys from Top Gear. They took the BMW E92 M3, Mercedes C63AMG, and Audi RS4 in a German’s best auto saloon shootout. The videos are a must watch for any car enthusiast…it makes me want the new M3 very badly!

The final conclusion that Top Gear makes is that all of the cars are amazing. They found the RS4 to not be so flashy, but powerful and the all wheel drive was nice. The C63AMG was just a beast, with a monstrous engine and difficult to hold traction due to all the power. The M3, which had the fastest time on the track, was an aggressive “masterpiece”. I personally love of front end of the Mercedes, but do not like the rear…but the 6.2 liter V8 should make up for that and then some.

Which of the three would you choose?

A couple weeks ago I picked up a 99′ Honda Accord coupe as a new beater car. Now a couple weeks later, I’ve also picked up another motorcycle, a 2002 Honda CBR600 F4i. My first bike was a 1998 Honda CBR600 F3. It was a great starter bike, but it was time to move up a bit.

Utilizing my “Drive a Dodge Viper for Free” methodology, I managed to buy the original CBR600 F3, drive it for a year and a half, and sell it for more than I paid for it. Pretty much all of my insurance, tax, and gas was over the past 1.5 years was made in bike profit, allowing me to have a 100% free bike for that time period. You can’t beat that!

While the old and new pictures look pretty similar, there are some major improvements on the F4i that makes the upgrade well worthy:

1. An updated look, mainly rear and front end makes the bike look more current of todays time. The F4i’s updated front end looks 10x better than the F3 in my opinion.
2. The i in F4i stands for fuel injection. The F3 is carburated. This makes the shifting much smoother, among many other improvements.
3. It’s a lot faster!
4. The bike is much lighter and smaller, that makes the handling a night and day difference. I feel much more comfortable turning on the F4i.
5. The rear compartment on the F4i opens with the key, so I can actually store little things in there. Not a huge deal, but a big convenience factor for me.
6. The gauges are digital now.

The only aftermarket part the bike has is a Jardine exhaust, which sounds great. Check out the video (Note: It sounds much louder in person):

There were a couple of issues with the bike, which ended up costing me about $250 to fix, but it’s basically as good as new now:

1. The brake lever was bent
   1. New lever ordered: $27
2. The guy I bought it from did a burnout unfortunately right before he sold it. Because of this, it needed a new rear tire
   1. New rear tire: $135 + $35 to mount/balance
3. A few bolts were missing from the windscreen (previous owner must have had aftermarket windscreen).
   1. 3 new bolts: $3.50
4. The air plastic air duct cover has a small crack in it
   1. New panel: $29
5. One of the handlebar weights was broken
   1. New weight + bolt: $12.50

Shipping was free. It was pretty minor stuff, and it’s part of getting the good deal to make the cost of the bike over time minimized as much as possible.

I’ve updated my progression of vehicles post with the new bike, make sure to check out all of the vehicles I’ve owned since being able to drive.

Here’s a few pics of the bike before I made all the above fixes:

Here’s a picture of all my vehicles currently (Sold the other bike last weekend):

I’ve modified my original “Progression of Vehicles” post to be one that I will update as I add or change any vehicles in my fleet. Last week I purchased my 9th vehicle (in my 8 years of driving). I would have blogged about it sooner, but I didn’t have a chance to wash it up until this past weekend.

It’s nothing special, but there’s a purpose to getting it. I bought a 99′ Honda Accord 4-cylinder coupe with 114k miles:

So you might be thinking…Dave, you’ve got a Viper and a G35 Coupe, in your garage, what’s with this? Well, I consider it a beater car for the fleet! In reality, it’s more of an interim car. My G35 has about 55k miles on it, and the warranty lasts through 60k miles. The Viper has been for sale (Although I haven’t really tried to sell it too hard yet).

Getting the Accord allows me to sell both the G35 and Viper at the same time, while having a reliable, fairly cheap car I can drive interim. I think I got a pretty good deal on the Accord utilizing my “Drive a Viper for free” methodology.

So I’m trying to figure out what I’ll be doing about car stuff, and I have a few options:

1. Keep the Viper, and sell the Infiniti.  Not sure what I would get to replace the Infiniti though…maybe rock the Accord for a while.
2. Sell both the Viper and Infiniti, buy a 2005 black C6 Corvette, and keep the Accord as a beater car.  I love the new C6 Vette body style, and it would allow me to retain all the power I have in the Viper, but be a lot more practical.  I would essentially try and daily drive the Vette, but I’d have the Accord for rainy days and what not.  This way I almost always have my sports car fix :)  I would get it in black, completely black it out, and get a loud exhaust…it would be pretty mean looking.  The main concern with this option is property tax will be really high, I think it would work out to be about $1,200/year for just the Vette.
3. I could sell both the Viper and Infiniti and buy one overall nice car.  I was thinking something like an BMW M3, BMW 5-Series, or maybe even the new G37 Coupe.  Property tax on this option will likely be pretty hefty, so something I have to put into consideration (Damn VA!!!).

I think those are my current options, I’m still unsure of what I should or want to do.  If you have any car suggestions, I’m all ears…just post your comment!  In the meantime my current fleet is the following:

1. 1994 Dodge Viper RT/10
2. 2004 Infiniti G35 Coupe
3. 1999 Honda Accord Coupe V4
4. 1998 Honda CBR600 F3 (Might also be changing this one up shortly)

For years I’ve always wanted a better solution for car games and how they are played. There is just nothing that really gives you the full immersion of being in a car, although things like force feedback and better steering wheels have gotten better. Although this is more than likely meant for simulation rather than video games, Festo has come up with an awesome solution:

What’s better than a picture? The guys over at one of my favorite sites (Autoblog) made a video:

I can’t see anybody not wanting to try this!