Sometimes a car’s color and design combine to make a striking package, and that’s what got my attention about this 2015 Mercedes CLS550 unicorn. CarMax has 88,000 cars for sale today, around 6,000 are red, and of those, only 100 are Mercedes.
As an aside, I created an innovative tool I’ll call a “pie chart” to illustrate the color breakdown. I would patent it if I were smart enough to make the slices match the car colors. Two points to be made here: one is that three-quarters of the cars on CarMax lots are your basic black, white, gray, or silver. Not much interest in colorful cars in the US at the moment. The second is that there are technically eight “pink” CarMax cars. There really are four; the others are mislabeled. The four are “Barbie” pink Jeep Wranglers – one a diesel and one a PHEV! Enough already.
The CLS has been one of my favorite designs since its introduction in 2004. The second generation launched in 2010 and ran through 2018, and the one above is a facelifted model. It’s a lovely red over tan. Eyecatching.
I wouldn’t call the interior dated – more like “traditional” for its time. I once owned, for about 48 hours, a Mercedes E63 AMG with the same interior, and it fit me well. This car has automatic cruise control and automatic parking, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, heated, cooling, and massaging seats, Harman Kardon audio, and the Driver’s Assistance Package. That’s a fairly loaded car only wanting for 4Matic. Like all CLS models, it’s a four-seater only.
Under the hood is a 4.7-liter twin-turbo V8 rated at 402 horsepower. Coupled with a nine-speed transmission (9G-Tronic), the CLS550 hits 60 mph in 4.7-5.0 seconds, depending on who you believe. Quite respectable for a non-AMG car. The engine bay looks brand new.
The 2017 Mercedes CLS550 sold for maybe $74,000 new almost nine years ago. It’s depreciated adequately, and priced at $32k, there’s hopefully room in the budget for MaxCare for another 85,000 miles and four years of risk-free driving. At the moment, the car is reserved here in Memphis, Tennessee. The stock number and VIN are below if you want to track it that way. If you’d like some first-hand feedback from one of my readers and a CarMax enthusiast, check out this exchange I had with Seth Steiner, who owns one of these CarMax CLS550’s. Auf wiedersehen!
Drove to Florida to catch the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona (done) and linger here for a few weeks until the Daytona 500 (not done) and enjoy the sun. Except once the race ended, I relocated to Miami with my wife, who joined me for a week to escape the brutal Virginia snowstorm (she shoveled while I enjoyed the race – I do feel bad), the Florida weather dropped to near freezing, and we dodged giant flesh-eating iguanas plummeting from trees. She flew home, the sun is back out, and I feel guilty….so putting in some “work” blogging.
Just dumb luck, I stumbled on another pair of Audis.
2015 Audi S6 – The “S” stands for Sleeper….in German.
I found a 2015 Audi S6 unicorn with the V8 motor a good month ago, and it’s still available with low miles and a low price. Audi launched the S6 way back in 1999, the third generation ran from 2012 to 2018, and the 2015’s in the middle of that run were facelifted. Interestingly, Audi S6’s started with the 4.2 liter V8, switched to a 5.2 liter V10, the Lamborghini-derived motor (used to see these at CarMax – check this out!), back to a V8 – a twin-turbo 4.0 liter for this generation, and in 2019, transitioned to a 2.9 liter mild-hybrid six cylinder. The six has the most horsepower (444) and is the quickest to 60 mph at 4.0 seconds. But first let’s focus on the 2015 with the V8!
Nothing fancy inside the 2015 Audi S6, though it’s quite well equipped. This car has heated, cooling, and massaging leather seats, a heated steering wheel, auto cruise control, cross-traffic alert, heads up display, and maybe night vision, although it’s not a listed item, and the photographer left out that dashboard shot. The listing says it has a Bang & Olufsen audio system and a Bose audio…..it’s Bose. I’ve driven a few Audis like this and dug the motorized infotainment screen, although I can hear my Dad saying, “Just one more thing that can go wrong,” although it would be covered by MaxCare.
For a mid-size sedan, the S6 has a decent trunk, although the rear seat shot is misleading. When I scoot the seat back, there ain’t nobody sitting behind me. Your leg length may vary.
My best bud had a 2014 Audi A6 TDI (diesel) he loved – it was comfortable and strong and survived the Audi diesel scandal, but not a violent encounter with a deer in Pennsylvania, and like the turbodiesel, has ceased to be. It always felt sophisticated to me. Guess this is a facelifted model, in its own way?
The Audi S6 performs well – 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds – because of the 420 horsepower V8, All Wheel Drive, and a 7-speed S tronic dual-clutch automatic transmission (DSG style). It has a governed top speed limit of 155mph. The car sold new for about $75,000 a decade ago and is holding firm at $32k now. With only 29,000 miles, you can get MaxCare for another 96,000 miles of warranty-covered driving. I’d do it. Oddly, this one-owner lifetime California car is being shipped all the way to Rochester, New York. You can track it here, or keep reading to see what the 2020 Audi S6 has to offer?
Stock No: 28021737 VIN: WAUF2AFC1FN013876
The 2015 Audi S6 is a bit analogue – just five years later, the 2020 model below gives a more digital impression. More modern. To be expected. And $9,000 more expensive and yet still within unicorn territory.
The 2020 S6, the current generation, is six years old and yet still sleek. The dual-screen system below looks as contemporary as anything on the road. The 2020 model is similarly equipped to the 2015, although with more sophisticated driver assistance (hands-free?), Apple CarPlay, and an all-digital dash. Love the quilted seats and the subdued red seats. It does, in fact, have the Bang & Olufsen audio.
The 2020 S6 is powered by a 2.9-liter mild-hybrid six that makes 444 horsepower, and with an eight-speed Tiptronic transmission and again, AWD, Car and Driver made 60 mph in four seconds flat – a half-second quicker than the V8! I asked the net to simplify the choice between the 2015 S6 with a V8 and a 2020 with a V6 and got this:
2015 for classic V8 power and character.
2020 for more tech, efficiency, and refined performance.
The 2020 Audi S6 is a two-owner, accident-free car that split its time between Florida and Illinois before being listed by CarMax in Richmond, Virginia, and now being shipped to Charleston, South Carolina. It sold new for $75-80,000, not much more than the 2015 – and is now listed at $41k – with higher miles than the older 2015, though. Here’s the listing if you want to track it.
Last week, I blogged about the 2015 Audi S8 unicorn above. Here’s the link. As I published it, I wondered when I last wrote about an Audi S8 and searched my blog archives. Almost exactly a year ago, another 2015 Audi S8. The 2015 S8 above is selling for $35,998 and has 40,000 miles. The last one I wrote about was selling for $39,998 and had 38,000 miles. It gets stranger.
Here’s what I wrote last week about the one above:
CarMax reports it was in one accident in 2021, with severity “unknown”. Must have been a doozy. The details in the Experian AutoCheck Report note:
Accident or Damage Reported Left Side Damage or Repair Reported Right Side Damage or Repair Reported Rear Damage or Repair Reported Damage or Repair to Bumper Reported Damage or Repair to Wheels Reported
If there was damage to the roof, I’d be wondering if they rolled it! How do you damage both sides and the rear? It’s buyer beware, though the accident was years ago, and you have to believe it’s rolled into the price. If you want it as a bargain to drive it until it’s not worth anything, maybe you don’t care. If you’re worried about resale, maybe you do.
And here’s what I wrote a year ago on that 2015 S8:
Oh yeah. It’s a single-owner car, and in 2018, the single-owner crashed into something in Georgia. The Experian Auto Check Report notes:
Accident or Damage Reported Moderate Damage Reported Right Side Damage or Repair Reported Front Damage or Repair Reported Damage or Repair to Bumper Reported Damage or Repair to Hood Reported Damage or Repair to Radiator Reported Damage or Repair to Grille Reported Damage or Repair to Fender Reported
My immediate thought was, “Oh hell – I just wrote about the same car twice, a year apart!” and I was annoyed that I had invested a couple of hours writing all for nothing. Yeah, I wondered why the same 2015 Audi S8 was back on the market a year later with just a few more miles and for a few thousand less, although it wouldn’t be the first time a car was resurrected by CarMax. That’s not the mystery, though.
The screenshot above is the S8 from a year ago. It’s a different color, and because I’ve been tracking Stock Numbers and VINs, I was able to verify that these are two different, but nearly identical 2015 Audi S8’s. The mystery is the almost identical, horrific damage to two Audi S8s of the same year. Not a mystery, but embarrassing, is how similar my write-ups were on both cars. Maybe I’m just running out of automotive creativity? I’ll try to be better. Anyway, wondering if CarMax buyers are on the prowl for damage-depreciated Audi S8’s?
Happy belated New Year! I haven’t forgotten my CarMax collaborators. Will explain the delay in writing in a bit. But first, a unicorn I don’t want to miss – a 2015 Audi S8. Bargain price and low miles. Low profile. Fast. Luxurious. Tempting.
(The reason for not writing here is that I day-hiked the Grand Canyon Rim-to-River in the fall and spent weeks writing about it. If you’re into hiking, the Grand Canyon, my shameless links to my other webpage adventures are at the bottom of this blog.)
This is a third-generation, facelifted S8. The folks in Audi World are highly confident that only 697 S8’s were sold in the USA in 2015, and only a few thousand over the years. A rare bird.
The Audi S8 comes fully loaded – heated, cooling, and massaging seats, auto cruise control, heated steering wheel, heads up display, adjustable suspension, Bose audio, and all the safety stuff, including Cross-Traffic Alert.
The Audi S8 has my coveted night vision!!!
Here’s a weird deal breaker for me. At 6’4″, my head is usually at or behind the B pillar in most cars, including this big Audi. Yesterday I tried to slide into an Audi S8 and an Audi S6 at my local CarMax, and bruised my butt in the process. Both cars have this protrusion, and I hit it every time I got in. I asked my favorite CarMax Car Dude Guru Service Rep Ryan about it, and he thought it might be a side airbag housing. Google AI agrees with Ryan. The photo below was mine from the Audi S6. The only way I could own an Audi, I guess, is to have my left cheek reduced. My insurance won’t pay for that.
(Please tell me you’re impressed I’ve learned how to add graphics to pictures after eight years of this.)
The rear seat doesn’t look as spacious as I’d like, with the driver’s seat probably all the way back. Nice powered window shades, though.
Enormous trunk. Nice road trip car. Motor Trend thought the fuel mileage was excellent at 27mpg highway in a 500+ horsepower big sedan. Gives you almost a 600-mile range at normal speeds. A tradeoff for sure, given the sports car performance lurking in an S8. A “regular” V8 Audi A8 gets 30mph highway – a V6 only 29!
This 10+ year old Audi is not without imperfections, and CarMax has included photos of some nicks and scratches. These are the things that would not bother me for $36k, but would drive me crazy in a higher-priced car. Battle scars. But there’s more to the story. CarMax reports it was in one accident in 2021, with severity “unknown”. Must have been a doozy. The details in the Experian AutoCheck Report note:
Accident or Damage Reported Left Side Damage or Repair Reported Right Side Damage or Repair Reported Rear Damage or Repair Reported Damage or Repair to Bumper Reported Damage or Repair to Wheels Reported
If there was damage to the roof, I’d be wondering if they rolled it! How do you damage both sides and the rear? It’s buyer beware, though the accident was years ago, and you have to believe it’s rolled into the price. If you want it as a bargain to drive it until it’s not worth anything, maybe you don’t care. If you’re worried about resale, maybe you do.
You can tell this is a fast car by the red trim on the housing.
Above is the heart and soul of the S8 – a twin-turbo V8 making 520 horsepower. The A8 V8 pushes 435. With an eight-speed automatic and AWD, the S8 rockets to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. Top speed is 155 mph, governed. Remarkable for a 4,600-pound luxury sedan. Below is some dude’s video of the motor and a quick fast getaway.
The 2015 Audi S8 sold new for at least $115,000. It’s less than a third that now, leaving room for a must-have MaxCare extended warranty. It’s currently being shipped to CarMax Capitol Expressway in San Jose, California. Here’s the link if you want to track it.
StockNo: 28161877 VIN: WAUK2AFDXFN011633
Bonus: if a high-performance Audi S8 isn’t for you, for just $4,000 more, you can get a more refined, four-year-newer A8 with a V8! This is a fourth generation, so you also get the dash with multiple flat screens, and not the pop-up display in the 2015 S8. And this one hasn’t been crashed. It’s here in Sacramento.
If you comment, “Okay, Boomer,” you wouldn’t be wrong. This car is not for me. I’m sure it is for a lot of folks younger than me. I have never seen a wing this big on anything sold by CarMax. Does that make it a unicorn? I’m thinking not. I’m also thinking the Subaru WRX’s performance is not increased a whole helluva lot (if at all) by the addition of this gizmo.
The 2023 Subaru WRX didn’t come with a wing at all. This is a one-owner California car, and the one owner not only added the wing but also wrecked it about a year ago. You know who you are. This is an aftermarket unit. So are the Italian wheels, from OZ Racing. They’re legitimate rally wheels. Fan of F1 driver Carlos Sainz, Jr? Back in 1990, his dad “won the Driver’s World Rally in a Toyota Celica 4WD, equipped with OZ wheels,” according to OZ. I can live with the wheels.
The Subaru WRX STi had a wing (above), but it was discontinued for the 2023 model year.
I’m not advocating this car. It was in the results when I was searching for a cheap, fun, manual transmission car. It probably is a cheap, fun car, but there are better choices. For the same price, you can buy an actual WRX STi from CarMax – just a few years older. This base WRX has 271 horsepower, and the STi has 310, the latter running maybe a half-second faster to 60 mph, and maybe in need of the more tasteful (to me) factory wing?
CarMax has 132 Subaru WRX’s for sale as of today. This is the only one with the giant wing, so it’s pretty unique? Better act fast. (Like this car is acting fast?) This 2023 Subaru WRX is currently available here in Stockton, California.
This is an automotive mystery, and I welcome help from anyone and everyone to solve it. My hobby is searching the CarMax website for unicorns, and sometimes that means searching with one attribute or another and seeing what pops up. Are there any V-12’s? Hellcats? What’s the highest mileage car? Lowest? Most expensive and least expensive? Oldest? Newest? The latter drove me to this post. Of the 83,000 vehicles in CarMax’s inventory, about 100 are 2026 models. Intrigued by how “used” 2026 models end up on CarMax lots, I dug deeper. Imagine my surprise to find a dozen nearly identical brand-new (almost no miles) 2026 Nissan Rogues not only at CarMax but also at a single dealership in Turnersville, New Jersey. I had to know more.
January 2026 Update – The number of new Rogues went up to 27, and nine have sold (so far). Most are in Maryland and New Jersey, though some strays have reached Michigan, Missouri, and even El Paso, Texas. Long ago, I was fascinated with the Where’sGeorge tracker for dollar bills. Explains my odd fascination with keeping tabs on these Rogues.
I called the Turnersville, New Jersey, CarMax, identifying myself as a writer on all things interesting at CarMax (a bit of an exaggeration), hoping to ask their sales folks how and why they came on a dozen identical “new” cars. I presume they got them in a batch at an auction, and yet couldn’t imagine why. And why sell them all at the same CarMax dealer – why not disperse them to nearby dealerships? A very nice young saleslady called me back to say she had no idea how this happened, and really, dealerships have no visibility into how cars show up on their lots anyway. I did not believe her and figured she was both clueless and, even if someone at the dealership knew, they weren’t going to tell me.
Next, I called the closest Nissan dealership to that CarMax, Nissan of Turnersville. They’re a seven-minute drive from the CarMax dealer. A gruff but loveable sales manager scolded me repeatedly that there’s no way CarMax could sell “new” cars, and these were probably old, and don’t worry about it. I assured him these were 2026 models, and as far as I can tell, they were never titled and have almost no miles. He said maybe, but if you buy from CarMax, you won’t get Nissan’s 1.9% financing (Salesmen are all alike), and I interrupted to say “not my point – a used car dealer in your backyard is selling a dozen damned near new Rogues in direct competition with yours!” I got his attention and we had a nice chat, and I gave him one of the VIN’s since he seemed intent on following up by then. I got a hint of the New Jersey mob indignation at someone encroaching on your turf and wondered if some car dealers were going to the mattresses. Imagine my disappointment when, a few hours later, I got a text saying,” By the way, if you are interested in buying a new Rogue…”
That was yesterday. Tonight, I started scrubbing the CarMax listings to begin this post and was gobsmacked to find that most of these new CarMax Rogues are moving from Turnersville, New Jersey, to the CarMax in Laurel, Maryland, not far from me. What the hell? For the longest time, the CarMax in Laurel was the last CarMax that sold new cars – Toyotas back then, so I’m wondering if there’s a connection. The web tells me there are no CarMax’s selling new cars anymore. I’m baffled why having a dozen new Rogues at a dealership in Maryland is any better than one in New Jersey. And while I’m doing this rigorous analysis over some Jack and Sprites watching Thursday Night Football, I see there are two more of these 2026 Rogue’s inbound. We are up to 14 now.
I don’t know a lot about Rogues and don’t much care. But of course, I had to dig deeper into this little SUV. It’s made in Smyrna, Tennessee. All of these models have AWD and a 1.5-liter 3-cylinder engine good for 201 horsepower, 228 ft-lbs of torque, and a 0-60 mph in a sluggish 8 seconds. Be aware: CarMax lists some of these as three-cylinder and others as four-cylinder, but they’re all three-cylinder turbos. The sales price is pretty narrow, $27,998 to $30,998.
The mix is eight SV models and six S models, and all eight SV models are actually the next level up Rock Creek trim, with a few more features standard. The Rock Creek models are outfitted with automatic cruise control and Nissan’s best autonomous-driving feature, ProPILOT Assist. As an aside, I’m wondering how much better autonomous driving is on modern (2026) cars compared to my 2021 Mercedes?
The 12 vehicles above popped up in Turnersville, and the two below were listed for Laurel tonight. I’ve added all 14 to my saved folder on my CarMax profile so I can see where the hell these vehicles go next.
For what it’s worth, all of these Rogues were first available in September. All in New Jersey. No mention of fleet or rental. All say the last recorded mileage was maybe “1” OR “2” miles.
Oh yeah, for those unfamiliar, like me, with the trim levels and MSRP for the Nissan Rogue, here you go. Rock Creek is not a trim level you can sort for in the CarMax app, but you can see from the Nissan website below that trim was $4,000 more than the base model, and maybe, since CarMax can’t distinguish, perhaps a bargain? The top-of-the-line trim is Platinum. This ain’t that.
In closing, if anyone can help figure out the dynamics of this peculiar accumulation of Rogue Nissans, I would welcome your input. To help, the stock numbers and VIN’s for the 14 Rogues are below. Thanks again for reading, and I appreciate any help.
Imagine my excitement at seeing a police vehicle for sale by CarMax for the first time. I expected a unicorn for sure… spotlight, cool rooftop antennae, maybe a cage between the driver and the rear seat perps, and a giant motor for high-speed pursuit. I didn’t expect this.
UPDATE – Alas, CarMax changed the listing. It’s now a Charger SXT. Photo at the bottom. 🙁
First, the interior….nothing special at all. A little bland with no gun rack or radio console. The Dodge has WiFi and Apple CarPlay, but that’s about it. The trunk is plenty big for big cop stuff, or suitcases and golf clubs. The back seat shows no blood or vomit stains, so I’m thinking this law enforcement officer was not in the apprehending business. Pretty benign.
The center stack photo below appears to be CarMax’s image capturing what a DUI captive would see. It’s not your eyes.
The disappointment is under the hood – a 3.6-liter six-cylinder barely making 300 horsepower. I was so hoping for at least the 5.7-liter HEMI V-8 with 370 horsepower. Or more. Not a lot, but a lot more than 300. The sedan does have AWD. It hits 60 mph in just over six seconds. Not chasing anyone down in this, although with 30 mpg on the highway, it might outlast a few on a long-distance run. On the other hand, this police car spent its two years in Hilo, Hawaii, racking up 45,000 miles – that’s about 200 laps of the entire island. There are no long-distance drives.
Reading the history report, I was relieved and yet disappointed to see no prior theft. How amusing that would have been. There are no CarMax dealerships in Hawaii, and this car made it to Norco, California, east of Los Angeles and Anaheim, where it dropped $1,000 in price to $22,998. No need for MaxCare on this. Here’s the link, should anyone really be interested.
There is nothing at all wrong with the Jaguar F-Type sports car. I have struggled to get over its shape compared to the sensual XK and XKR, and yet on its own, it’s a legitimate British enthusiast car. While exploring the few manual transmission cars available in the CarMax inventory, I was surprised as hell to find a Jaguar. And when I did, I turned to the web to see how rare these cars are. All extrapolated, but it seems only 4% of Jaguars that made it to the US were manuals, and diving down to F-Types, in the “S” trim, only 100-150 were imported to the US. Here’s one. A unicorn.
Before we get to the drive train, let’s look at the creature accouterments. Or not. CarMax suggests this car has pretty much nothing going on inside and even notes it doesn’t have air conditioning. Bullshit. Amazing to me how far off CarMax can be in its descriptions. Generally, I don’t care, unless a car doesn’t have the options it says it has, in which case it’s overpriced. But what’s more important is that they get it wrong and underprice a car because it’s listed without features it really does have! Love those.
The Jaguar F-Type S is a big hatchback, like the Audi S5? or my 1977 AMC Gremlin?
Let’s get to performance. The Jaguar F-Type S is powered by a 3-liter supercharged V-6 making 380 horsepower. While it wouldn’t seem to have V-8 oomph, it actually zips to 60 mph in less than five seconds and tops out at 170 mph. I didn’t think it would be that fast.
This 2017 Jaguar F-Type S is currently on reserve in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You can track it here. It sold new for $80,000 and is on sale for about 40% of that now. It’s a two-owner, accident-free Texas car for all of its time. Here’s your chance for a rare unicorn. And for this price, you can spring for MaxCare and be out the door for less than $40,000.
It’s been a couple of years since I sold my vintage 1971 Fiat Spider, and from time to time, I wonder if I have it in me to buy and enjoy one more manual transmission car. That sends me down a rabbit hole looking for a cheap CarMax unicorn stick shift (does anyone call them that anymore?) that, in my fantasy world, would be an extra car I could tool around Northern Virginia, but wouldn’t be my only car I’d have to shift up and down the highway on road trips. There’s a blog post in my head comparing a bunch of CarMax manual-transmission cars (how about a Genesis? An Audi? Even a Jaguar?!), but that will inevitably delay this post indefinitely. So let’s just go with one. I’m going to open with a 2016 Ford Focus RS. CarMax has over 80,000 cars in its nationwide inventory today, and this is the only Focus RS. BTW – my first “hot hatch” is at the bottom of this post.
Starting with the unremarkable, the Focus RS’s cockpit doesn’t have much going on. Seat heaters. Bluetooth. Sony sound system. Some nasty stains on the driver’s seat I don’t really want to know about. The same infotainment stack that was in my daughter’s 2015 Ford Escape. Fairly unremarkable.
What makes this car interesting, as opposed to unremarkable, is all things performance and enthusiast-related – a six-speed manual transmission, AWD, and 2.3 turbo four that makes a staggering 350 horsepower. The only four bangers that made more in this era are the Mercedes GLA/CLA 45s with 375. The Ford Focus RS screams to 60 mph in about 4.6 seconds, not far off of pretty much all of my CarMax unicorns: my 2004 Mercedes S55, 2008 Porsche 911, 2010 Mercedes S600, and 2013 BMW M3 – all of which cost me more than this Focus RS.
The 2016 Ford Focus is faster than a comparable Volkswagen Golf R, and yet admittedly not as refined. The Focus was more performance-oriented than the Golf. It sold new for about $37,000. Nine years later, it’s only lost a third of its value. What other manual transmission enthusiast cars could you get from CarMax for this price? How about a Genesis G70? A Mustang GT? A Fiat 124 Spider? All interesting cars, and only the Mustang is as quick. If you want a hot hatch, this is the one. You’ll be alone at Cars and Coffee.
You can find this 2016 Ford Focus RS on its way here to Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s had six owners, but no accidents. And below this photo is my first sort of hot hatch that I’ve never forgotten, after 40 years.
Stock No: 27839125 VIN: WF0DP3TH5G4117993
My 1977 Ford Fiesta. With a 1.6-liter Kent four cylinder, the basis for Formula Ford motor racing way back when, and a whole lotta fun for a used car. Paid $1,500 for this in 1984 and commuted to work in it. Sometimes, I got air vaulting over roads in Montgomery County, Maryland. It’s the German Ford Fiesta. Not the South Korean one of later years. My joy driving this car makes me want to own some modern version of it, hence my enthusiasm for the Ford Focus RS.
A few months ago, I found the 2022 Alpina XB7 unicorn below on the CarMax website, the first I’ve seen on my favorite used car lot website. Bookmarked it, and it vanished for a long, long time…until today. It has been on reserve, and it’s now available. I did some digging and found that BMW launched the Alpina version of this full-size X7 SUV, known as the XB7, back in 2020. It has sold a couple of hundred units every year in the USA and abroad – all made in Spartanburg, South Carolina. So far, 2,800 units through 2024. I’ve never seen one on the road. Poked around on the CarMax page a little more, and found they have three of these Alpina XB7’s! Unlike the Alpina B6’s and B7’s I’ve posted before, the XB7 is not identified as a separate model from its X7 counterparts; it’s there under “Trim”, like the X7 M50i or X7 M60. And even then, it’s listed as a BMW X7 Alpina, and not an XB7 as it’s officially named by BMW. It’s on the rear hatch. Let’s go to the vehicles.
2022 Alpina XB7
2021 XB7 in California.
2021 XB7 in North Carolina.
Going to lump these three together since they are nearly identical, except for some pricey options, and a huge $20,000 gap in price between the least and most expensive, even though they’re only a year apart. The 2022 is listed at $86,998, the middle 2021 for $73,998, and the bottom 2021 is “only” $67,998. The SUV’s sold new for $140-150,000 just three or four years ago. Depreciation is your friend here. You could easily drop $68k on a three-row Suburban or Escalade and not get this level of Alpina performance or panache.
2022 XB7
The interiors of all three XB7’s are nearly identical, and all well equipped, and in fact are also indistinguishable from the base X7. The Alpinas get a logo on the steering wheel, some different looks in the driver’s dashboard screen, and buttons instead of paddles for quick shifting. All three get automated cruise control, heated, cooling, and massaging seats, Apple CarPlay, heads-up display, heated steering wheels, and all the latest and greatest safety and technology features. All three get a 10 out of 10 as “loaded” models. I’d agree.
2021 XB7 – the $74k one.
2021 XB7 – the “cheap” one.
Yes, the shifter in the Alpina is crystal. It doubles as a wine stopper. Not.
The back seat is where the differences happen. The $87k and $68k XB7’s have the $850 optional rear captain’s chairs, and only the middle one ($74k) has the $2,200 optional rear entertainment system. Wonder if it wasn’t possible to have both? Another distinction is that the two most expensive XB7’s have the base Harman Kardon audio system, and the “cheap” one has the $3,400 optional Bowers & Wilkins audio. I’m liking the $68k one more and more.
Third-row seats below in all three look nice and likely suck for grown-ups.
The Alpina XB7 matters most in performance over the regular X7’s. Alpinas are not as bawdy as true “M” models, keeping some of the luxury ride you get in a normal six-cylinder X7 and even the V-8 powered X7 M50i. With larger turbos in the 4.4 liter motor, a less restrictive exhaust, and transmission tweaks, the Alpina pumps up power from 523 horsepower in the M50i to 612 in the XB7. Acceleration drops from 4.1 seconds to 3.7 (about the same as, ahem, a 2021 GLE63 AMG?), and the governed top speed leaps from 124 mph to a claimed 180 mph. From a nearly three-ton, three-row AWD SUV.
An awesome sound. Car and Driver says it’s a reasonable 77db cruising….until you do this.
Engine bay shots are obligatory. Identical triplets….almost. One of these is not like the other and I dare you to find the CarMax lapse in one of them!
Let’s wrap up the discussion of the three with a little bit of info on each, and then a much cheaper alternative at the bottom!
The 2022 Alpina XB7 above is a three-owner car on paper, although the first was a dealer. It has 24,000 miles and appears to still be under the manufacturer’s warranty, but not for long. It’s currently available in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Here’s the link if you want to track it.
StockNo: 26601185 VIN: 5UXCX6C17N9M88445
The middle-of-the-road 2021 Alpina XB7 is available in Palmdale, California. Here’s the link. It’s a one-owner car, always in Burbank.
StockNo: 27622632 VIN: 5UXCX6C1XM9E24076
The “bargain” 2021 Alpina XB7 is coming soon to Charlotte, North Carolina. Here’s the link. It was a two-owner vehicle, originally from Vegas and Montana, until it made its way east. I highly recommend MaxCare for this, which should be available up to 125,000 odometer miles – about 87,000 more.
I’ve been haggling with the CarMax website bot for the last half an hour, trying to get the MaxCare cost and terms. It claims it turned me over to an agent, who claims MaxCare is $2,200 for five years, 150,000 miles. That’s total bullshit. CarMax doesn’t go past 125,000 miles on European cars, and the price is likely $7-8,000. I pushed back, and now the “agent” says I can’t get the price until I create a build order. Untrue. I’ve gotten them before. Either inexperienced, a bot, or dishonest. I suspect they’ll disconnect me. If I get it, I’ll update.
