First of all, not trying to take over this thread, but it is a photography thread essentially and there seems to be a lot of interest in these answers, so instead of PM'ing all of you, here you go.
For the beginners, rts_kaneda was using a looooow ISO on most shots, I'd say between 50-200, the pictures are just too clean, with the exception of the one with the city lit up in the background (little noisy), still an awesome shot but a higher ISO might have been used.
When taking shots at night, a tripod is mandatory if you want to be creative with your shots, setting your camera on the ground or a table etc because you don't have a tripod often leads to less of an interesting perspective.
2nd, is either of these 2, a cable release, or shutter delay/timer that can take the picture without physically depressing the shutter (shaking the camera). Mirror lockup is overkill IMO unless your shooting macro shots of items the size of a penny taking up the entire photo to where if the camera moves a fraction of a millimeter, it will cause blur in the final image. On car shots its just not necessary, although if you have a cable release and want to do it just because, go for it!
3rd, FOR BEST RESULTS shooting when its dark out, shoot low ISO (200 or less), and long shutter speeds. Shooting with a high ISO to get high enough shutter speeds will only result in grainy images and should only be used if a high shutter speed is needed for that shot to get the look you desire. Even with the slight amount of noise that occurs from taking long exposures, I guarantee you it will be cleaner than any shot you take with your ISO up around 1600+ to get your desired shutter speed to get the shot without a tripod.
Your ISO is simply: your sensors sensitivity to light. By upping its sensitivity (using higher ISO, also creating more noise) so the shutter doesn't have to be open as long to create the proper exposure does not make sense when (if shooting with a tripod) you could have it at its lowest ISO, therefore yielding the cleanest photo, and instead of trying to get handheld shots at higher shutter speeds, allowing your shutter to stay open on a tripod for 5-30 seconds in order for all that light to come in and get the same picture, only with way less noise.
4th, so now shutter speed and ISO are dealt with, white balance will most likely be on auto, and can be corrected in post processing if its a little off, but what about aperture?
My suggestion (for night shots) is shoot between f4 and f/11, f/8 is optimal.
It gets a tad bit confusing from here, but
the good news is aperture will be the least of your worries on these long exposure shots, but I'll break it down a little anyways.
Aperture is: the blades inside the lens and to what degree they're opening for each shot.
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1362596969.424463.jpg
If shutter speed and ISO are constant, your aperture setting will adjust the exposure because it allows more, or less light to hit the sensor during the set amount of time the shutter is open for.
It also controls depth of field. At higher number apertures f/11,f/16 etc you will have more in focus from front to back, but the shutter will have to stay open longer to get the proper exposure because not much light is entering through the blades and getting to your sensor. Shooting at a smaller f number f/4, f/5.6 etc will blur the background more and isolate your subject.
That's about it.
If you guys have any other questions feel free to PM me so we don't take up more of this awesome thread!