Chuck Banks – Page 44 – The Carmax Unicorn Blog

January 10, 2018May 8, 2018

By Special Request – A Buick…or Two

Pleased to have reader David Masini bring this to my attention. Because my CarMax Unicorns are normally limited to 60,000 miles or less, and $35,000 or less for very well thought out reasons (all my wife agreed I could spend on my next car), this car evaded my search. But David pointed out this Buick LaCrosse Super has a 5.3l LS4 engine and was one of the last “performance” Buicks since the GNX. Car And Driver thought so, too. With 300hp, a 5.7 sec 0-60, and alleged 156 mph top speed it sounds like a nice sleeper sedan for $8,998. The MaxCare warranty is probably not a whole lot and get’s you another 22,000 miles of free repairs, but I would probably roll the dice and go naked on this one. What could go wrong with an LS4? Find the car here in Louisville, KY. If the link is dead it’s sold/on hold/being transferred.

2008 Buick LaCrosse Super

BONUS BUICK

2008 Buick Lucerne CXS — Meets the Unicorn criteria, from a price & mileage perspective, &has a V8, but not terribly exciting. How much can you expect from 275hp?

January 6, 2018May 8, 2018

Black Cadillac – STS-V for $24,998.

As far as I can tell only 2,503 of these were produced for 2006-2009 model years. Makes is a bit limited, if not rare. GM produced 10 times as many CTS-V’s. The car sold for almost $80,000 new and has the supercharged Northstar V8 pumping out 469hp – 0-60 in 4.6 seconds. A poor man’s M5? Find it here in Hartford, CT (although likely covered in ice today).

2008 STS-V

January 4, 2018May 8, 2018

Prices Dropping? Unusual Number of Unicorn Alerts

Over the past 24 hours I’ve gotten emails alerting me to price reductions on five of the 43 cars* I have saved in my CarMax profile. Not a lot – $601 per car, but in the year I’ve been tracking unicorns I’ve never gotten this many. Curious….New Year’s sale (CarMax doesn’t do sales) or is this related to the massive increase in inventory I blogged about last month ( The $577 Million Car Loan and Other Fascinating CarMax “Analytics” ) .

*I have 110 cars in my profile but many are listed as “No Longer Available”. I keep them because more than a few resurface in another city, or even a few have been sold back to CarMax and show up back on the market. That’s how I knew the 2010 Jaguar XKR I declined in January 2017 sold in Maryland, and was traded in and offered again in Virginia in December for $1,000 more than last year!

Here’s the unicorns I’ve been alerted to today:

Mustang GT Price Drop

$17,998 – Stupid Low Mileage 2006 Mustang GT

Link – If Dead Car Sold/Hold/Transferred

VW EOS Price Drop

$12,599 – Rare 250hp V6 VW EOS

CarMax Link – If Dead Car Sold/Hold/Transfer

PT Price Drop

$10,599 Low Mileage Retro Cruiser

CarMax Link – If Dead Car Is Sold/Hold/Transferred

Continue reading “Prices Dropping? Unusual Number of Unicorn Alerts”

December 31, 2017May 8, 2018

Five Obscure Unicorns for $10-$24k……. or Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder?

Writing this post for my new friends at the Facebook page “Obscure Cars For Sale 2.0” who think like me. There are unusual cars out there that somebody loves. Here’s my first five CarMax “unicorns” aka Obscure Cars for Sale. I hope you enjoy them.

2006 Ford Mustang GT 7k $18599 Cincy — How do you drive this car only 600 miles a year?

The only think obscure about this 2006 Mustang GT is the crazy low miles – 7,000! It’s brand new inside and out, and priced the same as a Honda Civic and way more fun. Throw in a MaxCare warranty for about $2,000 and you can drive this car until 2023 – when it’s 17 years old – and another 143,000 miles without a repair bill. It’s a 300hp V-8 in Cincinnati. Love it. Here’s the link to the CarMax ad. If it’s dead the car is either sold, on hold, or in transit to another dealer. I’ll keep tracking it.

2008 VW Eos VR6 $12,998 58k — Do NOT call this a chick car!

It’s cute as a button, German, cheap, and has a convertible hard top. But this little guy has the underappreciated VW-Audi 3.2 liter six-cylinder pumping out 250 hp. It also has a DSG transmission. What’s that you ask? It’s a Direct Shift Gearbox, an electronically controlled dual clutch automatic designed by Porsche that snap shifts stupid fast.

This is a sleeper version of a Golf-R32. Find this one-owner VW in Naperville, Ill and the CarMax page here.

Continue reading “Five Obscure Unicorns for $10-$24k……. or Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder?”

December 27, 2017May 8, 2018

Be Careful What You Ask For – Surprise V10 Unicorns

One of my CarMax boilerplate searches I saved is for any V10’s that surface. I get alerts occasionally for BMW M5’s and M6’s, but no longer Audi S6’s. Not sure why CarMax no longer carries them but one can hope. Today I got alerts for a pair of ten-year old V10’s. Both are bargains. One is for a ten-year old, 9,000 mile vehicle for $18,998. Sounded like a bargain. Maybe it is. The second is a little more pricey at $28,998 with 45,000 miles. Here you go.

December 15, 2017February 10, 2026

Hoarding Chevy SS’s?

As new 2017 Chevrolet SS models vanish from Chevy dealerships, and there will be no more (only imported from Australia 2014-2018) CarMax appears to be scarfing up the used ones. Normally 10-15 units nationwide, this week inventory jumped to 24 models. Love this car and it’s beefy V8. Will be a rare collector car soon!

November 19, 2017May 8, 2018

The $577 Million Car Loan and Other Fascinating CarMax “Analytics”

Small 73000 — **The total cars on the lot around noon, November 18th 2017. The numbers fluctuated by hundreds between the beginning and completion of this blog, rendering all my calculations estimates.**

The CarMax nationwide inventory jumped from just over 40,000 cars in the summer of 2017 to over 73,000 today. That’s the highest it’s been since I started tracking CarMax unicorns a year ago and it got me pondering on all things cosmic CarMax. For example, that 33,000 plus-up in stock equals a staggering $577 million* investment in cars in just a few months. I’m thinking like you and me, CarMax didn’t pay cash and owed somebody a helluva lot of money. You think they get dealer financing? I’m thinking CarMax needs to move some cars and hoping there are more unicorns and lower prices!

*The average CarMax vehicle sells for $19,677 with a gross profit of $2,178, indicating a rough guess each car costing CarMax $17,489. See “CarMax Reports Second Quarter Results, September 22, 2017″.

So I decided to do my own homemade “analytics” and dive deeper on what makes up an inventory of 73,000 cars. CarMax knows what they’re doing, and I suspect their inventory largely reflects what America wants in a car. So here’s what I learned. Continue reading “The $577 Million Car Loan and Other Fascinating CarMax “Analytics””

November 15, 2017May 8, 2018

Fooled Me Twice….500 Mile Journey to See a Jaguar That Won’t Start…and I Hate.

With every car I don’t buy I get smarter on this whole process. Or maybe dumber. Eventually I’m going to score a Porsche for the price of a Pinto, or I’ll give up and buy a minivan. Writing from a hotel room north of Raleigh, where I went to see this 2011 Jaguar XK. Not an XKR, but at $26,998 and only 34,000 miles I thought it might be the bucket list Jaguar for me without spending too much. I had set aside my pursuit of the Mercedes S600 (for now), thinking I can always buy a big sedan, but my knees and back are suggesting time is short for a sports car.

I thought the Jaguar looked vaguely familiar, a lot like the one I saw briefly in Baltimore last summer and was aghast at the pock-marked front fascia and more than a few touch up paint blemishes on the driver side. It was an XK that looked like it was half-way through puberty. But I never made an appointment to see it in Baltimore, just stopped by and eye-balled it, and couldn’t find the original ad. So I asked the young sales rep in Raleigh if this could be the same car. He sent me photos, and sure enough, the front end was clean and I hatched a plan to go see it. Continue reading “Fooled Me Twice….500 Mile Journey to See a Jaguar That Won’t Start…and I Hate.”

October 28, 2017May 8, 2018

I May Be Nuts – Passing on a $31,000 S600 V12 Unicorn

2009 s600 $30,998 50K

This car surfaced on 10/27 and within the hour I had it on hold. At my local CarMax no less. Saw it and loved it. Flawless, with “Designo” interior. Every feature you could ever want. Night vision. Distronic. V12. 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. Has all three levels of options. One owner. Was over $150,000 new and selling for $30,998. The MaxCare warranty is below. It’s also reasonable. Could be out the door for $40,000. BUT I decided it’s huge (it’s long wheel base model) and too much like Guenther, the S55 I sold. So back in the market for a sports car. But if nobody buys this by Monday maybe………