One Hell of a Ride (HP)

You won't have this car for very long, because it won't let you use this car after race 5, so my advice is to have the starter car fully upgraded before buying the next one, as the Barking Dog car will be sold for money once you buy the next car.

I came back and started playing this for fun and noticed that the game allows you to race without ever buying the Barking Dog. If you do this, you actually start in the Inferno car with boost and weapons halfway upgraded though I'm not sure on the other upgrades as the game will not allow you to enter the garage without buying a car, this doesn't last long though as Event 2 forces you to buy Barking Dog and you can't redo Event 1 without starting a new game. Using the cheat that allows you to bring up a hidden menu, I gave myself enough money to buy and max out Quasar and even then, the game defaulted to the Inferno vehicle for Event 1, what makes it more interesting is that you are forced to use Inferno for Event 1, even if you go ahead and buy Barking Dog before starting Event 1.

I also discovered that when buying a new vehicle, it may be better to max out your current vehicle first then buy the new vehicle, because the upgrades increase how much money you get back when buying a new vehicle, you won't get all of your money back as you're still selling the vehicle for a loss of money.