What is the coolest "dad" car?

dtran2149 · February 2006

Well, there comes a time in every man's life to accomodate some little ones. What minimum four seat car makes you the coolest dad in the neighborhood?

Here are some starters:

Acura TL
Audi S4
BMW 5-Series
Cadillac Escalade
Infiniti FX
Mazda RX-8
Porsche 911
Porsche Cayenne
Range Rover Sport

Recognize this is super duper subjective but would like to hear people's opinion!

carlisimo · February 2006

To me, some of those just say "my dad is rich and buys the same cars as all the other rich people do." If it's a sensible purchase and it'll look good in the executive parking lot, then it's not cool. If it appeals more to the kids than to the bosses, then it's cool.

Sports cars under $35k are the coolest; anything over is a midlife crisis car. So: RX-8, Evo, G35 coupe, GTO, etc.

Some SUVs are cool, like the Murano/FX, or the XTerra/FJ Cruiser/Wrangler (I guess Hummers too, if I were a kid). The latter bunch have to have mud stains and scratches, and a winch.

Among luxury cars, and besides the G35 coupe, I'd say the A3/S3... maybe the TL and CTS for their aggressive look. More so when they were new. And if you look scary yourself, then an old black Mercedes Benz boxy sedan is just perfect.

rockylee · February 2006

I guess that all depends on how rich "DAD" is. Z-06 or Caddy-V if DAD likes american muscle and is wealthy.

Hell the new Shelby Stang and Chrysler Corp SRT line-up is cool for "Dad". Of course if DAD is on a budget the GTO, Stang GT, Soltice GXP are nice choices too.

Rocky

lemko · February 2006

...a few really cool rides when he was younger:

1950 Ford V-8 coupe
1955 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Starfire convertible
1965 Pontiac GTO convertible

I recall him looking at a new Acura Legend back in the day, but he was putting my sister through college at the time. Mom would've killed him.

jefferyg · February 2006

Nuf said. :shades:

210delray · February 2006

Wow, that would be a nice trio to have today!

mirth · February 2006

Ford Mustang GT. Can hold two adults and two kids. Ultimate cool dad car and doesn't break the bank.

guss · February 2006

H1,if you can afford it. What do kids know about the environment and saving the Earth. What kid would not want to be picked up from school in one.

Until they are teenagers and will blame you for the hole in the Ozone layer personally,the middle east problems and the poor officiating in the Super Bowl.

prosa · February 2006

I'd vote for the TL. It's high quality but not ostentatious, the sort of vehicle you buy if you know a lot about cars but aren't looking for a highly visible status symbol. A TL is also "age appropriate" for a person in middle age, so other people won't start snickering about your midlife crisis. A G35 also would serve the purpose nicely.

rockylee · February 2006

Can Trucks or SUV's be part of the subject ????

If so how about a 2007 GMC Sierra Denali or Cadillac EXT ????

I know alot of Dad's depending on where he lives and his age do like Diesel Trucks. I'd tell that kind of Dad to wait for the new 07' Chevy or GMC HD 3/4 Ton since they will both be monsterous with Diesel Torque. 450 hp and over 800 lbs. of Torque are the figures I'm hearing. :shades: I'd also Buy dad as a present a good programmer from Banks, Edge, etc to push those number way up.

Rocky

perna · February 2006

Having just gone to the auto show with my 2 year old last Friday, his favorite was the Harley Davidson F-150. He was forcibly removed from the driver's seat kicking and screaming.

That said, he likes my Maxima more than mom's Explorer for some reason. He gets behind the Max's wheel and goes "VROOM VROOM". There's a Nissan ad in there somewhere. :P

tazereli · February 2006

likes the looks of a sleeper. Like a Legacy GT sedan...Even better in wagon form if they still offered 5 speeds in them.

carlisimo · February 2006

I'm afraid sleepers aren't cool to anyone but nerds.

I mean, enthusiasts. (So you're cool here.)

danf1 · February 2006

A muscle car with a station wagon body.

badgerfan · February 2006

Maybe whatever car has the best A-C?

Oh, you meant something different? Nevermind..............

habitat1 · February 2006

Our 911S Cab beats our TL 6-speed, according to my two daughters.

However, no matter how much they enjoy riding in the back of the 911 with the top down, it never would have happened if I hadn't first funded their 529 accounts. And, if all I had left over after that was enough to buy a $20 basketball to play with them, I'd have no regrets. Cool is fleeting. Good is forever.

dandersen2 · February 2006

I gotta go with the Legacy GT wagon too. Maybe i'm a nerd, too. I'm at peace with that. To be a good dad, you have to be at peace with yourself, so nothing too showy.
It's got looks, thrust, room for the dog and that way cool sunroof.

john_324 · February 2006

I'd offer that a blacked-out Ford Crown Vic with the sport package would make a pretty cool car for a Dad. If I were a Dad, I'd totally get one while they still made 'em. I love the sport package alloy wheels...

Functional, roomy, but no minivan or SUV. With the addition of some performance mufflers to bring out the rumble of the V8, you'd have a car that the kids would want you to pick them up from school with...

habitat1 · February 2006

"you'd have a car that the kids would want you to pick them up from school with... "

Maybe if their last name was Gotti.

varmint · February 2006

1959 Ford T-bird

http://ryanpurkey.immunenet.com/tbird-sale/index.htm

habitat1 · February 2006

You sure you don't mean "Cool Grandfather's Car". You need somebody at least old enough to be an original owner of that car to make it cool.

guss · February 2006

My kids would probably mistake that T-Bird for a space ship from another planet.

gallileo · February 2006

As a dad myself, my favorite two cars to impress my daughters friends would be sleepers:

Mercedes E55 AMG Wagon
Volvo S60R

Neither looks like much of a cool car, unless you really know what you are looking for. Niether is all that ostentatious. Both have sub six-second 0-60 times. Family cars that leave your average high-schooler's modded frakencar in the dust.

Get next to one of her buddies at a stop light, rev your engine at them, drop the hammer and wave to them in the rear view mirror.

Both are a little pricy though.

Failing that, a 911 will always be cool.

varmint · February 2006

We could always move in the other direction and give dad an Xb with extra bling.

carlisimo · February 2006

"Neither looks like much of a cool car, unless you really know what you are looking for."

So your kids' friends' dads will think you're cool...

rsholland · February 2006

It impresses my daughter and her boyfriend.

Bob

fitguy · February 2006

My dad had 2 cool cars back in the '60s- a 1963 Volvo P1800 and then a '66 Pontiac 2+2 (Catalina) with 421ci HO. Nowadays, try as you might, trucks (even with Hemi's and hood scoops) and SUV's (even with 22" tires and chrome rims) just aren't cool. An RX-8 would be cool; maybe a Mustang GT convertable. Guess it depends on how old the "Dad" is as well.

lemko · February 2006

...her Dad had two really cool cars when she was growing up - a 1955 Packard Four Hundred and later a 1962 Cadillac Sedan DeVille.

highender · April 2006

The TL was cool...but my son hated sitting in the back .

A cayenne would be my choice....(Obvious to those who know me)...since it can go to snow country and offroad and go fast..

A suburban to bring all the kids and friends to places/ trips....

A minivan for everyday duty...? Not really cool...but practical.....

Mustand would be nice....

or a 1992 Ferrari Mondial covertible...( 4 seater) ..cool dad....but lots of maintenance..(goes for about $30,000 nowadays.

rockylee · April 2006

Coolest Dad car for most folks would have to be a Corvette.

Rocky

xwesx · April 2006

A sport sedan or wagon would be my vote. After all, there's nothing considerate to the children about having a coupe. I know, as my mother had nothing BUT coupes in my childhood! Perhaps I was just more sensible than most kids, but I did not care how cool the other kids thought it was, I was quick to point out the deception. :mad:

As for SUVs/Trucks, at least from my area of the world, what's cool about having the same vehicle as 1/2 the other fathers? "Wow, Jimmy, your Dad's red Dodge pickup is so cool compared to the other 33 red Dodge pickups in the parking lot!" :P

highender · April 2006

I think the corvette would be cool ...period ! No matter what circumstance....

OK..except the the ultra rich who do not drive...and have chaueffers.

habitat1 · April 2006

Come on! :confuse:

The 911S Cabriolet offers 110% of the preformance of the base Corvette, with the kids in the back seat. Cool for dad and way cool for the kids.

My hand shook a little when I wrote that check, but I felt like it was a far less "selfish" purchase than a Boxster S would have been that could only hold my wife or one of my two daughters, but not all three of them at the same time. I had already done that with a Honda S2000 and it wasn't that "cool". But now, as my youngest says, we have a fun "family car".

P.S. 911 aside, I cannot forget my modest roots and offer that, in my opinion, it's a lot "cooler" to fund a 529 account than buy a Porsche. If I could have only done one, it would have been an easy choice.

highender · April 2006

hello Habitat:

YOu know me...I am speaking objectively. Well...we would run into the same problem with the boxster as we would the corvette...that is "not enough seats for the kids..."

so your point is well taken.... seating for 4 is always good... My 928 did well in this regard. That is one reason we sold the boxster S.....

good for you to fund BOTH !! You must have lots of fun driving... I bet you probably sometimes take the long way home..eh ?

rockylee · April 2006

The Coolest "Dad" car for this dad is a Buick Velite Roadster. :shades: Got plenty of room to take the kido's for a ride and the wife.

The Twin Turbo 400+ hp 3.6 will satisfy me every time I pull the trigger by applying pressure to the right pedal :surprise:

Rocky

john_324 · April 2006

The 911S Cabriolet offers 110% of the preformance of the base Corvette, with the kids in the back seat. Cool for dad and way cool for the kids.

Yikes! You actually stuff kids into those seats? How tiny are they?!

habitat1 · April 2006

"Yikes! You actually stuff kids into those seats? How tiny are they?!"

The seats or my kids? :surprise:

Actually, our 8 year old is about 4'2" and our 11 year old is about 4'10". They each have roughly 3+ inches of legroom to spare behind me and my wife respectively. We should be good for another 2-3+ years, maybe more if we stop feeding them all three meals.

Reminds me of a funny story with my old S2000. I took it in for service once and overheard a rather large couple complaining to the sales manager that there must be a problem with their new S2000's suspension, as it was "bottoming out" during a trip to the shore in which they packed the trunk full of beer and soda. Get the picture? I took the sales manager aside and asked him to estimate their combined weight. I guessed 450, he guessed 475. I then showed him in my owner's manual that the total combined passenger and cargo capacity on the S2000 is 400 lbs. I didn't stick around to watch him break that news.

rockylee · April 2006

So if you had 2 people one weighing 250 and the other weighing 200, you would be over the weight limit. :surprise:

What a POS

Rocky

highender · April 2006

but I would say that is strong argument for slimming down...

maybe it was designed for smaller people ?

carlisimo · April 2006

habitat1: "in my opinion, it's a lot "cooler" to fund a 529 account than buy a Porsche"

xwesx: "there's nothing considerate to the children about having a coupe"

Sorry to single you two out (except habitat - that statement of yours is the absolute top most uncool statement ever made by man); but this thread just reeks of people having no clue about cool at all! Wise decisions are NOT COOL. Comfortable and convenient are NOT COOL. If you have to be a car nerd to respect a certain car, it's NOT COOL.

Basically if you have to explain it, it's NOT COOL.

In a high school parking lot there are two kinds of cool: ostentatious cars (bling, lowrider, or sport), and hoopties (the really, really bad ones). Anything you own because "it's a good idea" fails. But... stuff 7 of your friends into your Camry and yes, for that night your Camry is cool. From some of your ideas of cool, it sounds like you're trying to pick up other kids' car nerd dads :sick: .

habitat1 · April 2006

"In a high school parking lot there are two kinds of cool: ostentatious cars (bling, lowrider, or sport), and hoopties (the really, really bad ones)."

Thank you for your enlightenment. For some reason, your definition of "cool" shows up as "obnoxious" in my dictionary. In my in my kids' abridged grade school version, it's simply "loser". :sick:

Maybe I should get together with some other nerd dads and vote to burn whatever dictionary your definition of cool came from. On the other hand, where would the next generation of manual labor workers come from if there weren't "cool" guys like you that dumped on 529 accounts as being un-cool? So I guess for the selfish betterment of our own economic status, we should live and let live.

carlisimo · April 2006

I'm not exactly cool myself... I'm nerdy, practical and boring, and careful with my money and my health.

I was just trying to think about it from the perspective of a 14 year old kid waiting to be picked up at school. The kid doesn't care about 529 accounts. He doesn't care about direct injection or torque distribution either, but he does know cool when he sees it.

I think our disagreement lies in wondering who determines a dad's coolness. I don't have kids and moved out of home very recently, so when I hear "dad" I think in the third person, from a kid's perspective. And hey, coolness is determined by kids; grown-ups just capitalize on it.

But I'm not giving up on the claim that if you have to explain it, it's not cool. Coolness is instinctive. It's primordial. It's brainless, which is why nerds will always be uncool even if they run all civilization. I bet there are lots of things that both of us agree are stupid (on MTV, for example), but they're still cool and we're not. And that's just how it is.

xwesx · April 2006

Hahahaha.... absolutely.... I "got it" on your previous post and I completely agree. I never was "cool" by that definition. I made a point not to be because that was what all the kids who were most selfish and obnoxious were. But, I still know "teenager" cool even if I do not like it. I am with 'habitat' on this one though. "Teenager cool" is skin deep; real cool is solid (real cool = fun PLUS responsibility).

*shrugs* I already shot my credibility though. I confessed to being outside the norm even as a teenager. :sick:

:P

ghulet · April 2006

When I was 17, my mom replaced our 'family car', a Toyota Cressida sedan, with a Porsche 944. While 'cool' and technically containing four seats, let me tell you, neither of us nearly six-foot twin boys thought sitting in the back seat was the least bit cool (and looking back, definitely inconsiderate). Good thing she bought my brother and I a Chevy Caprice (my idea, after the Capri/Mustang clone was nixed) so we could drive ourselves, our friends and anything heavy or dirty around!

'Cool' dad cars, for the not fabulously wealthy (after all, haven't 911s been 'cool' for forty years now?): Acura TSX, Honda Accord coupe maybe, Scion xB in some circles, perhaps a Chrysler 300 or Dodge Charger (mom rented one, called it the 'bat cave', but I digress; oh, and sans bling, please--nothing worse than seeing someone over 40 rollin' on chrome dubs).

xwesx · May 2006

nothing worse than seeing someone over 40 rollin' on chrome dubs

There is nothing worse than seeing anyone driving such ridiculousness. Well, except perhaps those inconsiderate arses that have the bass turned up so loud that it rattles everything within 1/4 mile. :mad: But, often times, these people are one in the same.

rockylee · May 2006

Sounds like my kind of friends. :P

Rocky

jlexoa · May 2006

Before i started driving to school last year.. my father would pick me up in either his Black Lexus GS430 or Champaign GS300. Both cars have 22" rims... and all i know is that my friend's dad has a 911 and another friend's dad has a Chevy Corvette and everyone completely ignored those cars when my dad's cars were near them. so as much as people hate the whole "bling" thing... if you want to be a cool dad and get your kids noticed as well as yourself.. you must have a luxury nameplate with big rims. :shades:

habitat1 · May 2006

A Lexus GS with 22" rims is just plain sick. I'm sure it got a lot of stares from gawkers, just as I would if I wore my underwear on my head. And it would be a toss up as to who retained the most dignity. But hey, if its attention from high school kids your dad wants/needs, I'm sure those 22" rims have paid for themselves twice over.

bk079 · May 2006

In my opinion, cool dad SUV's would consist of Toyota FJ Cruiser, Toyota Land Cruiser, Lexus GX, GMC Yukon Denali, and the 2007 Cadillac Escalade.

Cool Dad cars consist of any sporty convertible, Pontiac Solstice, anything BMW that is not old lady.

and of course, there is always the Chevy Avalanch, Ford F150 or GMC Sierra/Chevy Silverado that are typical dad trucks, that most teans see as cool

chrisducati · May 2006

1971 240Z.

fintail · May 2006

I don't think my dad's Chrysler T&C, Datsun 610, or industrial-fleet optioned Dodge Ram would count as cool in anyone's book. But are all somehow no less tolerable than a Lexus GS with 22" wheels.

What is the coolest "dad" car?

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