Happy (Belated) New Year Means Farewell 2012…For Eurocars. Here’s The Best Of What’s Left for 2013.

CarMax has 58,745 cars on the lots as of today, represented by 33 makes (when did RAM become it’s own brand?!). CarMax limits the fleet to 11 years old for European makes and 12 years old for all others. That means the oldest European cars available are 2013 models. And there are only 428 of the 2013’s spread amongst the 11 makes carried. Overall they have 2,226 2013 cars of all manufacturers. (CarMax still has 882 non-Euro 2012 models, for what it’s worth.) I thought I’d take a stab at the bestest most unicorn 2013 car from each the European manufacturers in rank order of nothing but my personal preference. Right up front I have to point out some makes didn’t have much to choose from. Check these totals out and then I’ll jump right into my top 11. There’s a bonus ringer at the bottom if you make it that far.

Audi 46
BMW 105
Fiat 16
Jaguar 3
Land Rover 4
Mercedes 83
Mini 64
Porsche 5
Smart 4
Volkswagen 73
Volvo 25

The 2013 Audi S6 actually deserves its own blog piece as a legit unicorn regardless of what’s on the lots of any year. This is a well equipped, low mileage, low price, sleeper.

The S6 has automated cruise control, heads up display, front and rear heated seats, a heated steering wheel, Bose sound, and you can see below….night vision! (I miss having that on the GLE63, even if it was only good for showing off to friends.)

The Audi S6 sports the 4.0 liter V-8 motor making 420 horsepower. With AWD the car rockets to 60 mph in an incredible 3.7 seconds! The S6 model before this has the Lambo V-10, making a little more horsepower but a little bit slower. I’d still opt for that if I could.

The web page below shows the very low price and very low mileage, and with MaxCare thrown in you’re looking at a very special sleeper for maybe $35k. It’s a three owner car that tagged a parked car in 2017 for a minor accident, if that matters to you. Find it here in Boynton Beach, Florida.

Stockno: 25211874 VIN: WAUJ2AFC8DN033789

Next we have another unicorn that deserves its own page. Wait a minute, it had its own page! Anyone recognize this 2013 Mercedes C63 AMG? Maybe Hans?

Wrote about this car almost a year ago when it sold in St. Louis for $1,000 less than it’s offered today. Here’s the link to that piece, and here’s what I said:

Blog reader and CarMax sniper Hans sent me this beautiful red 2013 Mercedes C63 AMG unicorn weeks ago, and prompted me to start a massive piece on the four naturally aspirated C63’s that were available at a wide range of prices on CarMax. Hans got me interested in these C63’s because they are powered by the 6.2 liter M156 V-8 motors – the first motor completely designed by Mercedes-AMG and put into use across the AMG line of cars in 2006, and went extinct in the 2015 C63. I had one in the 2010 Mercedes E63 I bought from CarMax and owned for….almost 48 hours. Sigh. It’s a legendary powerplant that pumped 451 horsepower in the C63 and 507 in the other AMG applications (also 507 hp in the 2015 C63 AMG 507. Covered one here!). It’s not without issues, and that’s why there’s MaxCare!

Everything you need to know about this powerful motor is above. This vehicle spent its first four years in Honolulu, of all places. The car is now in Jacksonville, Florida at the moment. Here’s the link.

Stockno: 25037880 VIN: WDDGJ7HB3DF988796

What’s in third of the 11 cars? Well, it’s another retread. Wrote about this 2013 BMW X5M just last month, and it vanished from the inventory when it was being transferred to Newport News, Virginia. It was back briefly and is now on reserve. Never know if it will sell. Here’s the piece from last month.

For just $32,998 (price is still visible in my saved links!) this 555 horsepower SUV can be yours (Matthew!). Low miles, heated steering wheel, automated cruise control….and fast as hell. It’s still here in Newport News.

Stockno: 24371907 VIN: 5YMGY0C54DLL15796

Number four on my list is a 2013 Mini Cooper. I don’t know Minis and this one is a base model – not an “S” or the coveted John Cooper Works (the “S” models were high mileage and no 2013 JCW available at this time) . But it’s damned near new for 11 years old, reasonably priced, and reminds me of my late 70’s Ford Fiesta days.

The Mini has seat heaters….and not much else (it does have an aux jack for the iPod and a CD player). But with under 7,000 miles it really is a new old Mini.

Here’s a funky new feature on the CarMax website I haven’t seen before. An option to click on a photo titled “See Cosmetic Imperfections” linked to a CarMax colored picture of a dime (for scale) up close shot. Honestly, I couldn’t see the imperfection in the shot at all. Bet folks are happy this feature isn’t on eharmony?

Both my 1977 (and 1980 – had two!) Ford Fiesta and this 2013 Mini were German made, and sported 1.6 liter motors with manual transmissions. Mine was a four speed – these six speeds weren’t invented yet, I think (although my 1971 Fiat had a five speed!) The Mini makes 121 horsepower and ain’t fast at all, and yet it’s nimble and just plain fun.

This is a one owner car that has spent its whole life in Seattle, Washington. It’s coming soon a few hours south in Vancouver, Washington and can be tracked here.

Stockno: 25131893 VIN: WMWSU3C50DT375491

Back to back hatchbacks. The loveable and raucous Fiat 500 Abarth. CarMax has just over a hundred Fiats nationwide, but only 500’s for 2013 so no 124’s, and besides, they’re really just Miata’s. And I adore this toy. Have since before they were for sale in the USA. Rented one in Norway in 2010 and drove to the Arctic Circle in it and fell in love. If you want that story, it’s all here in my Tripadvisor report from back in the day. The short version is I drove from Oslo 14 hours straight with one stop and was not at all uncomfortable. Back to this Abarth.

It’s got three pedals and a 170 horsepower turbo four. The exhaust note makes me giggle. It’s not the fastest car in its class by any means, but it has attitude. Style. I remember when I attended the annual nationwide Fiat gatherings in my vintage 124 someone said, “the Germans invented the automobile, the Americans turned it into an appliance, and the Italians taught it to sing and dance.” Never forgot that, although I cannot find who originally said it.

To complement the peppy exhaust you get an Alpine audio system, Bluetooth, and CD player. Not much else. No heated seats even. The seating position is just a little higher than most hatchbacks that are not crossovers, why I was so comfortable for so long.

There are a lot worse ways to spend fifteen grand. And a few more for MaxCare – you’ll want a warranty since there is no Italian word for reliability. True story. The old and talented mechanic in our DC Fiat club once worked in the Fiat factory in Italy. He said we could ignore the color coded original wiring schematic diagrams for our vintage cars. In the factory if they ran short of say blue wiring, they would just use red. Fiat is no longer importing these wonderful little cars, but they still have over 300 dealerships in the USA (Texas has the most, by the way). That’s more dealerships than CarMax has. You can find this little guy here in Hartford, Connecticut.

Stockno: 25164586 VIN: 3C3CFFFHXDT514317

What to pick for Porsche? CarMax has over 300 of them, and over half are Macans. Filter for 2013 cars and you get five cars; a very expensive 911, a decent Cayenne S with a 400 horsepower V-8 that’s cheap, a Panamera hybrid making 380 horses that’s also cheap, and a pair of Boxsters. If we can’t get the 911, we must go for the almost as good Boxster. There’s a pretty blue over tan one with only 31,000 miles, and yet I’d choose the one below instead. Higher mileage, but it has a stick. And it’s cheaper.

The Boxster was introduced as a mid-engined, convertible-only sports car way back in 1996. By 2013 we were on our third generation. Still a pretty basic sports car, with a heated steering wheel and, well, a manual six-speed transmission. Not even steering wheel controls for nothing.

What the Porsche Boxster has, though, is a “Boxer” engine. A six-cylinder flat motor with opposing cylinders just like the 911. Wiki told me, “Most flat engines use a “boxer” configuration, where each pair of opposing pistons move inwards and outwards at the same time, somewhat like boxing competitors punching their gloves together before a fight.” The advantages are low center of mass, they’re short, and they don’t vibrate much. The Boxster runs a 2.7 liter engine making 265 horsepower. (Stole the photo below from the web.)

Oh yeah, the Boxster is topless Porsche fun. With a manual transmission. That motor must sound wild with the top down.

The price is actually $35,998. There are better Boxsters out there, although for 2013 this is the best I could do. It wouldn’t be a bad day in good weather ratcheting through the gears in this car. It’s currently on the same CarMax lot as the Fiat in Hartford! Find it here.

Volkswagen didn’t give me much to work with for 2013, with just a handful of very high mileage GTI’s. And yet here’s a surprisingly good VW that would have passed me by if not for a blog piece long ago.

The 2013 VW Beetle 2.0T is pretty much a convertible GTI anyway. It’s got the same motor at least. Reviews suggest the Beetle has “style” and is “playful” and the GTI is an enthusiast’s car. Probably accurate.

The Beetle has a Fender audio system – didn’t know that was a thing. Other than that, like the Boxster, it’s got the basics made better by the top down. It is a pretty blue over tan, my favorite color combo of all.

Back to the motor. The VW Beetle 2.0T has the 2.0 (duh) liter four cylinder turbo shared with more than a few VW models, including the GTI. It makes 207 horsepower and coupled with the DSG transmission will get you to 60 mph in the mid-six second range. The GTI gets there a half-second quicker.

The 2013 VW Beetle 2.0T sold for maybe $25,000 new 11 years ago and hasn’t depreciated much at all. It does have only 36,000 gently driven miles. I’m assuming that because the car spent its early years in the Villages down in Florida, America’s premier retirement community. At the moment this adorable bug is here in Augusta, Georgia.

Stockno: 25003341 VIN: 3VW7A7AT0DM817594

Well seven down and four more to go. The quality of the cars is dropping and so is my enthusiasm for this project. So we will soldier on quickly with some “good enough” 2013 European makes. We still got Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and a Smart car to go! And the bonus car, don’t forget!

Volvo had me choosing between an $18,000 XC90 3.2R SUV, a $16,000 base mode, last-year C30, and this $19,000 respectable S80. I chose the S80. The SUV and the C30 are a bit underpowered and other than extinct, unremarkable. The S80 comes across as a legitimate upscale bargain. Did I mention I’m a sucker for blue over tan?

With only 33,000 miles the car looks quite fresh and elegant inside. Not much on creature comforts other than the climate package, though. Under the hood is a not shabby 3 liter, 300 horsepower turbo six. The car also has AWD for those Scandinavian seasons. Maybe someday I’ll do a post of my University of Maryland college class on productivity that took me to the Volvo factories in Göteborg and Malmö, Sweden way back in 1983. I’ve always wanted to like Volvo….until the Chinese bought the company.

At the moment this one-owner car is reserved here in Danvers, Massachusetts, not far from where it’s spent it’s whole entire accident free life.

Stockno: 25163214 VIN: YV1902AH5D1171229

CarMax you could have done me better on Jaguars, too. After being tempted by badass 500 horsepower XK, XF, and XJ “R” models for so long I’m disappointed not a one V-8 cat is on the market. Only three to choose from so I went with this 2013 XF 3.0 Supercharged. Supercharged always seems….super.

This car really is a British sister of the Volvo S80 above, I guess. Good looking. Seems expensive. But only $19,000 and low mileage. Again, unicorns are about “driving rich” without paying the price, and this was once a $70,000 car new, so I guess this fits the bill quite nicely.

This sedan has Bluetooth, Meridian audio, seat heaters, navigation, and a rear view camera. Surprised how few 2013 cars had them. I’ve test driven maybe a half-dozen Jaguars so far, and I don’t recall one of them having a shift knob with that “Hell Cat” logo. Scott?

Also struck by the complete lack of leg room in the back seat. Yes, the front seats are all the way back where I would put them (at six foot four my head is behind the B-pillar in every car I drive). There’s absolutely no room for passengers this way.

On a positive note, the Jaguar XF has a supercharged 3 liter, 340 horsepower motor that will scamper to 60 mph in the mid-five second timeframe, about the same as the 2012 5.0 liter V-8 according to Autoblog. That makes it a not too shabby tabby. Couldn’t resist. Getting late.

This 2013 Jaguar XF Supercharged spent its whole life in Louisiana and Tennessee, and somehow ended up for sale here in Los Angeles.

I wanted one of these Land Rover LR2’s after driving the first gen Toyota RAV4 for two years overseas and realizing I liked cute-utes. Drove the LR2 and found it to be the right size and a decent baby Land Rover. The LR2 is pretty good in rough terrain and was revamped in 2013 with some more luxury features inside only to be killed off after 2014. The SUV got the axe because it was unreliable, so much so that the Land Rover dealer I visited way back when would not offer and extended warranty on the car! But that was before I ever heard of CarMax and MaxCare. Now I think it could be an acceptable small backup car for winter. (There were no 2013 Range Rovers or LR4’s when I wrote this.)

Unfortunately, the Land Rover LR2 (Freelander everywhere else in the world) is a bit of a Frankenstein SUV. Platform by Volvo, motor by Ford, and built by the British. In fact, the chassis is the same as the Volvo S80 above!

The motor is the 2.0 liter four cylinder turbo making 240 horsepower, about the same as the previous six cylinder model I drove. It’s also the same motor as in the 2013 Land Rover Evoque, a far more sleek and modern offering the same year by the same manufacturer. Hard to justify, but for the price tag I kind of went old school with this 4X4 LR2 over the Evoque. Something almost vintage about its boxy shape. Might be tough to defend this choice when the Evoque is only $5,000 more, though?

The 2013 Land Rover LR2 is definitely a MaxCare must. It’s a three-owner West Coaster that’s available here in Palmdale, California.

Stockno: 24749962 VIN: SALFR2BG4DH381177

And then there was one. Plus the bonus car. Mercedes has had a good run with the Smart Fortwo worldwide since its introduction in 1998, but in the USA it only sold from 2007 to 2019. Fuel efficiency and tight parking struggled against the idea of F150’s in the rear view mirror, I guess. I’ve never been in one, although I still see them on the road.

Smart Fortwo doesn’t give me much to pick from. CarMax has 11 in the country and 3 from 2013. Not even a stick, or a special Brabus model. Yes, there was a Brabus-tuned model and thanks to Hans (again) I got to write about one here. The best things I can say about this car are that it’s yellow (love yellow cars) and it’s cheap. Only seven of CarMax’s 58,000 cars are cheaper. That’s something.

I also have rarely seen a “1” score in CarMax features. It has no power steering. But it does have a 1 liter, three cylinder motor in there that makes 70 horsepower. Top speed of 90. For an 1800 lb car I would have expected something better than 10 seconds to 60 mph, and yet that’s all she wrote.

Hell, this micro-car has survived an accident in Oregon so maybe it has a story to tell. Despite my moaning, this car will be just right for someone. It that someone is you, it’s here in Clackamas, Oregon.

Stockno: 25209845 VIN: WMEEJ3BA1DK658271

THE BONUS CAR!!!!

Over a half-dozen years of blogging about CarMax unicorns I’ve learned (and others have taught me) to be persistent searching the inventory. Cars that were sold are returned or traded in, and here and there an unexpected model shows up. I’ve been compiling these cars for a few days, and with each of the 11 European manufacturers I’ve double checked the inventory as I wrote just in case something better got added. (Unfortunately, Smart never got better.) Tonight this pristine 2012 – yes, 2012 Mercedes surfaced on the CarMax website. Just as I say there are NO 2012’s….here we go. One. The lesson is to keep checking – there may be something else out there that makes it back on a CarMax lot!

The C250 isn’t a bad car. Revamped in 2012 it got a 1.8 liter turbo four and hustles to 60 mph in about seven seconds. Inside and out it’s a handsome car. It’s a Luxury model, but not much in the way of modern features. Lovely gray over tan. And with only 24,000 miles it’s hardly broken in. And not a bad price – about half what it sold for new a dozen years ago. This one owner (never been out of Houston until now!) car is here in Fort Bend.

Stockno: 25255910 VIN: WDDGF4HB4CA622194