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Here’s an interesting graphic on “The Ultimate Theft-Proof Car” thanks to our friends at HomeSecurity.net.

It shares details about radio-frequency transmitter systems, SID (Secure ID Device), GPS Tracking Systems, GSM Car Alarms, Ultrasonic Interior Monitoring Systems, Keyless Alarms, and Passive Immobilizers. It’s probably overkill for a Yugo, but if you’re buying a used Bentley in Atlanta, you may want to make sure you have each of these installed if they aren’t already included.

Enjoy!

Research by Home Security.net

Be sure to visit our dealership at 985 Cobb Parkway South, Marietta, GA 30060, on the Web at http://www.selectluxury.com, or call 770-421-0070 to let us help you get your dream car.

Good news for you race fans out there: the owners of Atlanta Motor Speedway and over half a dozen other racetracks is profitable, despite lower revenues.  They’ve been lowering ticket prices to drum up fan support and attendance.

Race Track image courtesy of the Atlanta Business Chronicle

Speedway Motorsports Inc., owner of Atlanta Motor Speedway, reported second-quarter net income of $23 million, or 55 cents per diluted share, up from a net loss of $23.4 million, or 55 cents per diluted share, in 2009’s quarter.

Revenue totaled $177.6 million, down from $191.9 million in the second quarter of 2009.

The company is a promoter of races. Ticket sales and related revenue continue to be negatively impacted by declines in consumer and corporate spending due to weak economic conditions.

The Concord, N.C.-based company (NYSE: TRK) has cut ticket prices to drum up fan support. Lower average ticket prices constitute about 44 percent of the decline in revenue for NASCAR-sanctioned racing events held in the first half of 2010 compared to last year.

Read more: Speedway Motorsports turns profit – Atlanta Business Chronicle

Here at Select Luxury Cars, we sell a lot of preowned luxury and sports cars. Our consistent top 3 sellers are used Porsche, used Mercedes-Benz, and used BMWs.

In fact, we even have 3 used Porsche vehicles in our current Manager’s Specials: 2 used Porsche Cayenne SUVs and a used Porsche 911 Carrera.  Here’s one of the Porsche Cayennes:

2009 pre-owned Porsche Cayenne GTS at Select Luxury Cars

Porsche is one of the car makes that is selling well despite the recession.  Here’s an article from the Atlanta Business Chronicle:

Porsche Cars North America Inc. (PCNA) had its best U.S. monthly sales performance in two years during July.

The Atlanta-based importer and distributor of Porsche sports cars said Tuesday July sales rose 75 percent to 2,703 vehicles in the United States.

Year-to-date, Porsche’s sales are up 22 percent to 13,687 vehicles. Driving the way was the four-door Panamera, which sold 807 units — its best single-month total since it first went on sale last October.

Sales of Porsche’s Cayenne SUV jumped 68 percent to 910.

Porsche’s mid-engine sports cars, the Boxster and the Cayman, recorded robust sales of 392, an increase of 11.4 percent for July, while the German automaker’s iconic 911 sports car recorded sales of 594, a drop of 9 percent over the same period in 2009 when sales were 651.

Interesting perspective from Slashdot:

Atypical Geek writes “Charles Lane, writing for Slate, argues that subsidies for electric cars are an example of ‘limousine liberalism’ — a lavish gift for well-off Americans to buy expensive cars for the sake of appearing green. From the article: ‘How rarefied is the electric-car demographic? When Deloitte Consulting interviewed industry experts and 2,000 potential buyers, it found that from now until 2020, only “young, very high income individuals” — from households making more than $200,000 a year — would even be interested in plug-in hybrids or all-electric cars.’ Lane also takes issue with the billions of dollars in subsidies offered to automakers for the manufacture of batteries, arguing that research (warning, PDF) concludes that the money will not help in jump-starting the economies of scale that will drive down prices. At least, not as much or as quickly as the President has argued.”

My take is that it will take time for electric cars to truly reach the masses, including lower-income households.  Just like with televisions back in the 1950′s when they were expensive and it was rare for even higher income households to have more than one.  Now they are as ubiquitous as I expect electric cars will be several decades from now.

Side note: I think I’ve seen more Priuses on the road being towed behind mobile homes than actually being driven.  I’ve gotten a few laughs from this – but am I the only one who thinks that it’s funny to see an ultra-energy-efficient car being towed behind something that might get 10 mpg?  I searched Google for a photo of this, but to no avail.

Here’s something I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg never imagined when he started Facebook: In New Delhi, India, the Delhi Traffic Police have set up a Facebook Fan Page geared to leverage angry drivers and cell phones to catch traffic offenders.  The fan page’s description states (with spelling & grammar errors left intact):

Managing traffic in Delhi during the Commonwealth Games will be a big challange as well as a great opportunity. Delhi Traffic Police cannot possibly succeed without the active cooperation, participation and support ofall the citizens.

Traffic in New Delhi, a city with just 5,000 traffic officers to police the often-clogged roads. Image from the New York Times

From the New York Times article:

The traffic police started a Facebook page two months ago, and almost immediately residents became digital informants, posting photos of their fellow drivers violating traffic laws. As of Sunday more than 17,000 people had become fans of the page and posted almost 3,000 photographs and dozens of videos.

The online rap sheet was impressive. There are photos of people on motorcycles without helmets, cars stopped in crosswalks, drivers on cellphones, drivers in the middle of illegal turns and improperly parked vehicles.

Using the pictures, the Delhi Traffic Police have issued 665 tickets, using the license plate numbers shown in the photos to track vehicle owners, said the city’s joint commissioner of traffic, Satyendra Garg.

Now here’s the big question:  given Facebook’s privacy concerns and the fact that posts on a page are linked to your Facebook profile, will irate drivers who have been ticketed search through the fan page to find the person who reported them and potentially go after them in real life?

Be sure and become a fan of Select Luxury Cars on Facebook – we promise we won’t issue you a traffic ticket, but we will be happy to help you get into your dream car!  We’re also on Twitter @selectluxury and many other places around the Web.

New news in Porsche-land – the Porsche 918 Spyder will go into production. This is a stunning Hybrid Performance Sports Car that very well may redefine the hybrid sports car category.  Simply amazing!

Porsche 918 Spyder concept

Photos courtesy of the Motorauthority.com blog. See more photos here.

Also from the Motoraythority.com blog:

Porsche had put a 1,000-buyer threshold on the decision to build the 918 Spyder. By late April, the number signed up to buy one, should it be built, was over 900. It now looks like the 1,000-mark has been cleared, as Porsche president and chairman Michael Macht said in a release today, “Production of the 918 Spyder in a limited series proves that we are taking the right approach with Porsche Intelligent Performance featuring the combination of supreme performance and efficient drivetrain concepts. We will develop the 918 Spyder in Weissach and assemble it in Zuffenhausen.”

No time line has been given for when the car will be ready for the road, but we’d expect it to be at least a two-year lead-up to the first production models. Just in case you’ve forgotten how awesome the 918 Spyder Concept is: it’s a 500-horsepower, 78-mpg, 9,200-rpm 3.4-liter V-8 hybrid all-wheel-drive sports car capable of 3.2-second 0-60 mph, 198 mph top speed, 16-mile all-electric range, and looks to stop traffic cold.

I can’t wait to see one of these in action!  Hopefully it won’t be too long before we have some of these on our showroom floor at 985 Cobb Parkway South, Marietta, GA 30060. Call 770-421-0070 or email us at info@selectluxury.com for more information.

Select Luxury Cars buys and sells many used Porsches, as well as used BMW, used Audi, used Mercedes-Benz, and other sports, luxury and exotic cars.

http://images.thecarconnection.com/med/porsche-918-spyder-concept_100307363_m.jpg

Porsche 918 Spyder concept driver side rear view

This is a funny picture I found through Digg:

funny license plate on a Tesla: LOL OIL

Original photo at http://i.imgur.com/OP2pk.jpg

What is a Fuelly?  It’s a fairly new site that aims to help people share tips on improving their gas mileage, share data with others and also help people get more information about mileage for specific car makes & models when they’re looking to buy a car.

All data on Fuelly is public, so you can compare fuel economy among your friends or anyone else using the site. You can also compare different makes and models, years, engine types, and configurations (this is especially useful if you’re shopping for a new vehicle and want to see real-world economy figures).

Fuelly is a website that helps you track, share, and compare your gas mileage.  Think gas mileage goes social Web 2.0.  All you have to do is sign up, add a car, and start tracking your mileage.  It’s easy, too.  They’ve even built a version of Fuelly optimized for mobile devices such as the iPhone and other web-friendly phones at http://m.fuelly.com/

By recording and analyzing your mileage, you can see how much money you can save with small driving changes. You can also see how your mileage compares with EPA estimates and the mileage of other drivers using Fuelly. Tips and a discussion forum also offer ways to save. The site is free to use, so sign up to start tracking your miles today.

It’s a pretty useful tool – for example if you’re tracking your mileage over time, and see a decline in your gas mileage, it may be time for service.  This could potentially help you better keep up with maintaining your vehicle and having fewer major problems because you caught the little problems before they got big (and more expensive).

We hope you enjoy this!  And remember, when you’re looking for a used luxury car or pre-owned sports car, call Select Luxury Cars at 800-283-7224, email us at info@selectluxury.com or visit our website at http://www.selectluxury.com

Since our last post was about dirty cars, and dirty car art in particular, this time we’re sharing something about a very useful product for keeping your car clean.  The Heininger  1031 CommuteMate InstaCloth Towelette by CommuteMate comes in packs of 32 tablets for just under $8.00 on Amazon.com (affiliate link).

I found out about these through Lifehacker.com, one of my favorite websites.

Heininger Instacloth Is a Versatile Towel in a Tiny Pill-Sized Package

These little pill-sized goodies are highly compressed towels that expand into about 9″ by 9″ when wet and can be used to quickly and easily clean up those unexpected spills in the car, such as when you have to brake suddenly and avoid hitting the car in front of you, but spill your beverage in the process.  The best part is they don’t take up much space at all, and can be reused – though I don’t think you’d be able to easily re-compress them without special machinery.

Here’s an interesting site I found via digg.com – it’s by an artist named Scott Wade whose media of choice is dirty cars, particularly rear windshields.  Basically what he does is reverse painting, using the mud, dirt and grime on the glass as the base, then with water, a paint brush, fingers, etc he cleans away the dirt to create a painting.

Here’s a Toyota with one of my favorite Japanese paintings:

"Under a Wave | For Japanese TV, Hokusai's "Under a Wave off Kanagawa." The dirt was really unpredictable for this one, and it's very rough, but I like the effect, anyway. Photo Credit: Robin Wood"

And here’s one view of his work called “On the Road” where he did all the windows of a minivan. This was done for the Atlanta Arts Festival, though I’m not sure which year.

On the Road: The Atlanta Arts Festival was a lot of fun. I did an unusual piece suggested to me by my collegue, John McDavitt, featuring a family on vacation in their car, as seen from all sides.

You can view a lot more of Scott’s artwork in his website here: http://www.dirtycarart.com/DCAGallery/index.html