Quick Hits – Six Unusual Unicorn Sedans. Cheap Too!

Going to limit my comments to pithy short paragraphs or these interesting unicorns. I’m behind the curve on my annual drive to Florida for the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona this weekend. If any of you are attending please give me a shout – would love to have a coffee or beer and talk cars. I was stuck in Savannah (I just can’t help myself with my alliteration addiction!) because my BMW M3 went on the fritz and had to drop into Critz BMW in Savannah for diagnostics and a fix. After a couple of odd startups and alerts that my battery was either disconnected or discharging while off the car wouldn’t start yesterday, and once started wouldn’t go into gear. Had coffee and pondered options while visiting friends in Santee, South Carolina, and a couple of hours later – fired right up, went into gear, and I barreled onto I-95 south. Critz was able to fit me in and sent me a cool video this morning of them walking around my car and diagnosing….a loose negative cable on the battery post. Ugh. $237. I gave Critz my MaxCare info but I think it doesn’t apply. Glad they fit me in and glad it’s solved. Will continue south tomorrow. Let’s get to the cars.

This 2013 BMW 550i caught my eye because it’s cheap at $24,998 and it’s a V-8. Always like sleeper sedans.

But eagle eyed readers Nate and Hans both shared it with me because although it’s listed as an automatic, it’s really a six-speed three pedal manual transmission car! I don’t know how rare these are, but I do know that’s cool as hell.

Handsome interior above and surprisingly well equipped, with adaptive cruise control, seat massagers, heated and cooled seats, heated steering wheel and more! CarMax says it has the cold weather package, the driver assistance package, and the M sport package. The car sold new for maybe $65,000 ten years ago. Below we see the 4.4 liter twin turbo V-8 that makes 400 hp.

On one hand, a 400 hp 6MT BMW sedan with decent miles selling for less than $25,000 seems too good to be true. And maybe it is. But Jared shared with me the N63 motor has issues that even MaxCare might not make up for. Sure they would cover the cost of repairs, but the car would be in the shop more than out. That became a hassle and disappointment with my original unicorn, the 2004 Mercedes S55 that I loved – when I got to drive it. Googled the N63 and found “There are several widespread issues with the BMW N63 V8 engine. These include oil consumption, fuel injector failure, timing chain failure, leaking valve stem seals, and fast battery drainage.” (thebmwstore.com) If this loaded 2013 BMW 550i 6MTis for you it’s currently being shipped to Ontario, California but you can track it here.

Stock 23542210 · VIN WBAFR9C52DC271574

Break – the BMW below is NOT the same car above!

Got this one from Mustafa and Hans. The most affordable V-12 we’ve seen in some time – a 2014 BMW 760Li for only $32,998. That’s a steal. This was a $140,000 car nine years ago and really captures my enthusiasm for unicorns – highly depreciated and foolish to own without MaxCare. I cannot imagine walking into Critz BMW here in Savannah when I go to pick up my M3 and ask if they’d give me a five year warranty for another 75,000 miles on a nine year old V-12 BMW.

This 760 is loaded as you can see below. Has adaptive cruise control (even though CarMax doesn’t note that), heads up display, lane departure alert, and even night vision assist, which I still dig for no good reason. The car has heated, cooling, and massaging seats. Oddly, CarMax indicates the 760 has both the Harman Kardon sound system and the Bang & Olufsen audio. It has the Bang & Olufsen, or “B&O” as Mustafa taught me. I believe the B&O is a higher level of sound?

The BMW 760Li does have the 6.0 liter V-12 motor making 535 hp. Not as much as I’d like – the modern M760 hits 600hp, but as I learned with my 2010 S600 that Jared stole from me anything above 500hp in a V-12 is just smooth, quiet power. With the eight-speed automatic the 2 1/2 ton sedan will still scoot to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds. Sweet.

I believe you could be out the door with this 2014 BMW 760Li with MaxCare and taxes for $40,000. That’s unusual. It’s currently here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not far from you Jared!

Stock 23541481  ·  VIN WBAYG0C56EDZ04826

Wait there’s more! Enough with these Euro-sedans, let’s look east.

This is a high-mileage 2012 Acura TL SH-AWD for only $16,998. If you don’t drive much or don’t care about carrying MaxCare on an Acura (I’d roll the dice without it) this is an interesting sedan. Over the years the highest mileage I’ve seen CarMax carry has been 129,000, although currently there are several listed at 130,000. MaxCare is only good to 150,000 miles and 36 months on this Acura.

As you can see below, it’s also a six-speed manual transmission car and that’s just plain fun.

When I see the Acura logo I just can’t help but see it as the start-stop symbol on cars. And while we’re at it, I have never really liked the Acura TL beak. It’s dialed back for this year, but it looks like the pointy end of the old can and bottle opener my mother used to have. I once owned an Acura (an MDX, only the second new car I’ve ever owned!) so nothing personal. Anyway, below you can see the neatly packaged 3.7 liter six cylinder that makes 305 hp. With AWD it will hit 60 mph in 5.3 seconds. Not horrible.

This is the second 2012 Acura TL SH-AWD I’ve covered, and while the last one I blogged about here in July, 2021 was $5,000 more it had only 52,000 miles. Back then I noted CarBuzz revisited this car in the review, “The Manual Acura TL Is One Of The Coolest Sedans Ever Made“. They clearly dug it. Check it out here. The 2012 Acura TL SH-AWD sold new for north of $43,000. Somebody will buy this car. Right now it’s here in Glencoe, Illinois.

Stock 23074716  ·  VIN 19UUA9E54CA008402

Next (below) we got a sweet 2013 Jaguar XF Supercharged, another sleeper sedan. An overused (by me) adjective for this car is “handsome”. Conservative lines, nicely appointed, and doesn’t bring attention at all to the supercharged part. Don’t even think there’s a badge that indicates it?

The interior is the same as the Jaguar XK. Nice trim on the seats, which are heated and air conditioned. Comes with Bowers & Wilkins (B&W?) audio. Not a whole lot else, so a bit sparse for a luxury sedan. It was about $68,000 new back in the day, about the same as the BMW 550i above, with less features but a lot more oomph.

And here’s where that oomph comes from – a 5.0 liter aluminum supercharged V-8 powerplant pumping 470 hp. That’s the same as a Dodge Charger SRT from the same timeframe but with far more panache. Mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission the XF Supercharged was good for a 4.5 second 0-60 mph sprint. Seems like most of the fun cars I look at, as well as my S55, 911, S600, and M3 were all mid-four second runners. I guess nowadays if you’re driving something that takes five seconds or more to get up to cruising speed it better bring something extra to your drive – more luxury, technology, fuel economy, a stupid low price, or a drop top?

This 2013 Jaguar XF Supercharged is selling at a a real good price here in Oceanside, California. The only thing better would be an XF-R if you could find one at that price.

Stock 23674931  ·  VIN SAJWA0HE4DMS64829

Guess I gotta go there again – another handsome sedan, this 2014 Mercedes E550. It’s a nice blue over tan combo. Over the past year I noted CarMax was only offering two door versions of the E550, and out of the blue (pun intended) this very low priced car showed up. (and a second one this week as well for $5000 more!).

CarMax has this one listed as a “10” out of 10 on features, and I have no idea why. It has heated and air conditioned seats, but no adaptive cruise control. It has Harman Kardon sound, blind spot monitoring and lane departure warning, and best of all it’s AWD, or 4Matic in Mercedes-speak. Below we have a 4.7 liter twin turbo V-8 rated at 402 hp. With a seven speed automatic it’ll hit 60 in 5.2 seconds – so ignore everything I wrote above about needing to be below five seconds. Actually, don’t. The AWD is worth a coupe of tenths come winter time.

This 2014 Mercedes E550 sold for about $70,000 new. This car is selling for $25,998 here…it’s on it’s way to Georgia from my Dulles dealership (gestalkerwagen). Don’t know how much it matters, but it’s a one owner car that drove the Baltimore-Washington roads for the last nine years and had a pair of accidents along the way.

Stock 23831407  ·  VIN WDDHF9BB4EA781388

Have one more sedan that has gotten my attention, and you may be hard pressed to figure out why. It’s a 2011 Mercedes C300 with over 80,000 miles selling for $16,998. It’s not a bad looking sedan, with reviewers generously suggesting it takes its styling cues from the S-class. But that’s not why it’s here.

It’s also a 4Matic like the E550 above, and while that’s nice, CarMax has almost 600 4Matic Mercedes for sale. Technologically it’s limited to Bluetooth and a rear view camera, so it’s clearly not that.

The 3.0 liter six-cylinder motor makes 268 hp and will chug this sedan to 60 in a hair under six seconds. It’s no C63 that’s for sure. Mileage? Maybe 18-25 mpg. You can get that in a V-8 S550 at the moment. None of these are persuasive arguments to include this sedan.

The reason this car makes the list for me is it is the ONLY European car from 2011 that has snuck it’s way into the CarMax inventory out of 48,000 cars. I’ve written before that CarMax has some sort of policy on European cars – it was once told to me as nothing more than 10 years old makes the cut but that’s not proven to be true. There are still 189 European 2012 models for sale, and technically they are 11 model years old. They are dwindling fast, though. This C300 is 12 years old and CarMax will still sell you MaxCare for another 48 months and 43,000 miles.

This “vintage” 2011 Mercedes C300 is currently reserved in Roanoke (sounds like a movie?) here. While it’s one of a dozen Mercedes C-class cars selling for $16,998, you may be surprised to learn it’s not the cheapest – CarMax has a 2012 C250 here for only $15,998!

Stock 22507106  ·  VIN WDDGF8BBXBR181932