The $220,000 BMW 325i – Hartge H50 V10 Sedan

$40,000 buys a base model 3-series sedan. What kind of BMW does $220,000 buy? Turns out that it buys the same base model 3-series but with a few extra goodies. Try as it may, don’t let innocent little sedan pictured here fool you, it’s a monster.

Hartge is a well known BMW and MINI tuner. Most enthusiast spruce up the interior of their Bimmers with a Hartge shift-knob, some perhaps get a set of their beautiful wheels. Rarely does one see one of their fully tuned cars and even less frequently does an original come up for sale. … Continue Reading

LEGO VW Camper – Old Customers are Best Customers

There was no internet. There were no apps to download for a device which did not yet exist. Games like Pac Man and Pole Position were mastered within days. Chances are that if you are in your thirties and still very much into cars (you’re reading this, right?), you probably spent a significant amount of time playing with LEGOs.

Apparently LEGO realized that word-of-mouth is the best advertising money can’t buy, and in the world of apps, games, videos, how does a company such as LEGO market their product? Simple, sell it to dad. Just imagine yourself with your kids, sitting at the little kids’ table, assembling the Unimog or this here VW Camper. The bonding and the precious time spent together would make a fantastic postcard. Right up to the time when you put YOUR Unimog or VW Camper high on the shelf away from their grabby destroying little paws. … Continue Reading

Movie review: There’s Something Wrong With Aunt Diane

Taconic State Parkway is a scenic road, not unlike Connecticut’s Merritt Parkway, which meanders through New York’s wooded Hudson Valley.  On an early Saturday afternoon, during the summer of 2009, it became a site of a terrible accident. A minivan traveling at 70mph, in the wrong direction, in the left lane, collided head-on with an SUV. The accident claimed eight lives, including four children. The driver, a mother and an aunt of the children, was found to be drunk and stoned. The movie looks at the events leading to this tragedy and tries to answer the many questions.

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Movie Review – Transformers: Dark of the Moon

America is rapidly becoming the land of wretched excess. Arriving at the movie theater, you are greeted with 55 gallon drum of carbonated drink, a wheelbarrow of popcorn, and multiple fistfuls of sweets. Herding into the screening area, after climbing several flights of stairs, you slump down into an overstuffed barcalounger that is still oddly uncomfortable, and peer up at a three storey high viewing screen through gargantuan 3D glasses. This movie was made for the American movie going experience. This movie was made for America!

Transformers had all the trappings of the perfect summer blockbuster. Serving up equal ingredients of sexy cars, bombshell beautiful girls, gunslingin’ robots, US armed forces, root-for-the-underdog battles, conspiracy theories, and stuff being blown up, Transformers has everything you need to enjoy two hours of air conditioning on a hot summer evening. … Continue Reading

LEGO Technic Unimog U400: details and pictures

Unimog is the German do-it-all ultimate utility machine. It is part tractor, part tank, part all-terrain-vehicle, and all awesome, and it has been convincing grown men to become farmers, woodsmen, or outdoorsman for sixty years now. To celebrate this anniversary, LEGO if offering a Technic version of the Unimog U400 in a 1:12 scale.

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Good Toys, Bad Cars, Ugly Results

You know what’s wrong with car reviews? The cars being reviewed are brand spankin’ new. Three weeks ago, when an agent at the rental agency informed that I will be getting a Suzuki SX, one of the least expensive cars on the market, I felt a bit disappointed. Keeping an open mind, I started driving while looking for this car’s faults; where did they cut corners? What was not included? What was about to fall off? Will it roll on the first curve? Will it make it up a hill? To my disappointment and bewilderment, I found none. What I had here was a perfectly good $15,000 car.

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Toys for CarGuyDads

Christmas is a few days away and if you have not got your shopping done yet then you are pretty much screwed. Hopefully your kids and, more importantly, your significant other are taken care of. In between the cleaning, decorating, and other holiday preparation festivities you may have forgot one thing, yourself.

Seriously, you work your ass off, often unappreciated, why not get yourself a few cool toys you have always wanted? Yes, toys! Toys you have always wanted as a kid but for one reason or another never had due to lack of space or time or most likely money. And yes, you can justify this purchase as a way of bonding with your kids, even if they’re newborns. Get them started early.

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Gran Turismo 5 – Full Review

After nearly 6 years of development and roughly 2 years of maddening delays, Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo 5 finally hit stores on November 24. Since 1997 Gran Turismo has claimed to be the “Real Driving Simulator” offering an impressive selection of cars and real-world race tracks. With creator Kazunori Yamauchi treating each game as his brain child while leading the development team, they’ve made Gran Turismo one of the most successful and valuable gaming franchises on earth. After GT5’s long-awaited release I spent more time than I should have playing the elusive creation, and I loved every minute of it.  … Continue Reading

Review: TomTom 350XL with Dora Voice

It almost seems like “nav” is the factory option to have these days. Tell someone that you just bought a new car and one of the first questions you will hear is “did you get the nav?” It makes you wonder how we ever got anywhere without it.

However, a quick look at stand alone options on any car reveals a lack of any navigational system. Opting for nav usually requires stepping up to a higher trim level or purchasing some kind of on overpriced technology package that includes a backup camera – which seems to be another feature we simply cannot get enough of. And Bluetooth, gotta have Bluetooth. … Continue Reading

Radio Flyer Comfort Embrace Wagon

Mattel Recalls Trikes and Cars

Mattel, subsidiary of Fisher-Price, issued recalls for several carguydad-related toys . The first recall is for over seven million trikes, where the problem is a protruding “ignition key” which has caused ten injuries. The trikes being recalled can be identified by disc- or D-shaped keys (pictures below).

The other recall is of Little People Wheelies Stand ‘n Play. The wheels on the little the little green and purple cars can come off and cause a choking hazard. … Continue Reading

Teaser: Double Bugaboo – The Donkey

A recent new phenomenon on car websites are Teaser Shots. Those are pictures of upcoming models, put out by the manufacturer, that give the reader a glimpse of the finished product. This is usually a headlight, some gauges, perhaps a seat. To me this is the equivalent of a stripper showing you a knee and an elbow; it’s pointless.

Now Bugaboo, the BMW of stroller companies, is jumping on the bandwagon and released pictures of their upcoming double stroller called Donkey. The double stroller was always noticeably absent from Bugaboo’s lineup, a product which would have likely brought back many repeat buyers. … Continue Reading

2010 Toy Fair: Quick Look at Car Toys, part I

Toy Fair is the annual convention of the Toy Industry Association. Each year hundreds of toy manufacturers, toy store owners, and distributors gather in New York City to show off their latest products and hopefully make a few deals along the way. I had the opportunity of attending this convention and of course checking out the toys that a carguy would love his children to play with.

I focused mainly on car toys, but I also looked into classic toys that I have grown up with. After spending several hours at the fair I have found a lot of toys that were simply not good in one way or another, the below listed toys, however, were all clear winners. All these show high build quality in all aspects, including packing and directions. All were designed with a great amount of detail, all encourage creativity and enhance motor skills. … Continue Reading

Automoblox – Ambiguous but Fun Toy Cars

I have seen these toys being mentioned on both car-related websites as well as parental magazines, and I must say that I was a bit intrigued. First off, these toys were styled by a self-proclaimed “designer” which in and of itself worries me. You see, I have seen a lot perfectly fine products taken by these so-called designers and completely butchered, take the Bungled BMW 7-series for instance. What is wrong with a proper 1:43 model of a real car? I’ve had dozens of these growing up and I loved all of them. I still have my BBurago E24 6-series, somewhere – it is those toys have started my love affair with the car. So now, I look at these “designer toys” and the carguy inside me is screaming “What the hell is that!?” … Continue Reading

Review: Dyson DC31 Vacuum Cleaner

Until now, if you wanted to properly vacuum your car you had two choices: go to a car wash and pay $0.50 per minute and hope that the vacuum you have chosen actually works (it’s a real crap shoot) or you bought your own shop vac, which was the size of a Saint Bernard and is as portable. Sure, there are small the cigarette lighter powered vacuum cleaners, but usually they are not worth the box they come in. … Continue Reading