Intrigued by this 2014 Cadillac CTS-V unicorn at a not unreasonable price of $41,998. Nice sedan with 556hp 6.2 liter motor. Low mileage. But the history puzzled me.
Check out the prior use – Government! Did some poking around on the internet and yes, there are police departments that have used marked and unmarked CTS-V’s. But this is a five owner car. Confiscated narco Cadillac?
Not a bad car. Low mileage. Accident free. Would be cool if it was a cop car. Disappointing if a confiscated narco car – not quite fast enough as a getaway car? Find it here in Greenville, South Carolina. Hmm. Moonshiner car?
My sixth annual journey to Florida for the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona race is coming to an end, and as with anything automobile related, there is a CarMax link. Hang in there with me. My original plan was to drive my ’71 Fiat convertible here from Virginia, but some minor electrical gremlins and possible bad weather prompted the prudent switch to the Mercedes S600. I still took a few days to meander the back roads here in splendid comfort. Tomorrow we load up on the auto train for the 900 mile overnight trip home.
I won’t bore you with too much on the race details. Lots of web sites will tell you how it went. If you’re new to endurance racing though, it’s five categories of cars racing simultaneously at Daytona; three classes of prototypes and two classes of race-prepped sports cars. Usually four drivers taking turns at the wheel per car, although a few teams had only three drivers. Here’s the winners for three of the categories, and their (sorta) CarMax equivalents. (The other two prototype categories have no road car lineage as far as I can tell.)
I stole this photo. Credit goes to…whoever took it and put it on the web.
Yes, for the first time, an Acura prototype (not an NSX) was the overall winner at Daytona, completing over 800 laps. Fascinating, and frustrating, that after 23-plus hours the Cadillac prototype was hot on its tail looking for a way to pass. Cadillacs have taken the last four overall wins here. But seven minutes – SEVEN MINUTES – before the finish the Cadillac had a tire puncture and pitted. Acura earned the win.
I actually too this shot of the winning Acura in the winner’s circle from the BMW Champions Club rooftop.2014 Acura TL SH-AWD – with a stick!
And this is the best I can do to find the CarMax unicorn that might be fun to drive. It’s a stretch. A good 305 hp 3.7 liter six cylinder, AWD, and a six speed manual transmission. Not a rocket at a six second 0-60 mph sprint, but no slouch. This was the last year for the TL, and especially a manual transmission one. The car was a good $44,000 new, and can be had for less than $20k here in Parker, Colorado.
In the for what it’s worth category, the 24 Hours of Rolex is ridiculously fan friendly, even during a pandemic. I splurged on the BMW Champion’s Club, with infield roof top views from the start finish line, an open bar, great food, and lots of TV’s for replays. The Club was horribly run and a bad deal this year compared to last. The infield has more than a few vantage points and bleachers for watching racing close up through the infield turns.
The grandstands, though, offer spectacular views of the tri-oval, Turns 1-5, and the high banks. And so few people attend the race you can sit anywhere you want. I tend to spend much time up here. But back to the cars.
Borrowed. Credit to someone other than me.
The Corvette C8R won the GTLM class, completing 770 laps. Second place went to another C8R just 3.5 seconds back. First win here for the Corvettes since 2016 when they also placed 1-2. Last year the C8R debuted at Daytona and struggled a bit, but went on to win the championship for the 2020 season. If you weren’t sure about Corvette making the switch to mid-engine, be a believer now.
The 2021 GTLM winning Corvette crossing the line!2020 Corvette C8
Earlier today when I was pondering this blog post there were a handful of 2020 Corvettes for sale by CarMax. Tonight there are none. I wrote about this first 2020 Corvette on CarMax’s lot last August. I have since seen the street version live. Beautiful car. Allegedly the list price on 2020 models started at $59,000, and pretty clear nobody ordered base models. The used ones on CarMax, albeit with very low miles, are selling in the mid to high $80,000 range. This first one was offered up at $95,000!
Sunrise at Daytona is always special. Unlike Le Mans, run in June, Daytona’s winter race happens a little more than 50 per cent at night. But when the sun rises, there’s still almost nine hours of racing to go!
And in the morning, from the Champions Club roof, I can see my lonely S600 in the infield! I may dig my V-12 sedan, and yet it got none of the attention my ’71 Fiat got here last year. Sigh.
Back to the race cars. In the “lowest” class of all, the GTD (GT Daytona) winner was this Mercedes AMG GT S. It completed 745 laps and was just 16 seconds ahead of the second place car – another AMG GT S. They were dominant as hell on Sunday. And lucky for you, there’s one available right now at CarMax!
2016 Mercedes AMG GT S
This Mercedes has been on and off the net and recently dropped $1,000 to $82,998. Once a $130-150,000 car it seems like a bargain. Entry level exotic. Over 500 hp and a mid-three second 0-60. Stunning to the eye. I have been tempted. Sat in one, though, and was way more cramped than in my 911. The gigantic center console has something to do with that. But I so love this car, currently for sale here in Covington, Louisiana.
My plan to be faithful to my blog and sell Etta, my 2008 Porsche 911 unicorn, to either a blog reader or auto enthusiast who wanted a starter 911 with another two years and 15,000 miles of MaxCare protection has fallen apart. I turned the 911 in to Intersport Performance, the 911 specialists nearby in Ashburn, Virginia to do the 60,000 mile service and detail the car in preparation for putting it up for sale, and lo and behold they made me an offer I could not refuse. The car sold for $6,000 less than I paid for it. No doubt it is worth more, and I’ll cringe when I see what it’s offered for on Intersport’s web site. But the sale was immediate and painless. And I have another car being transferred in.
I was soooo happy to buy my 2008 Porsche 911 three years ago. It was my wife’s idea. She said I’d always wanted one, and I wasn’t getting any younger. I should buy a 911 while I could still get in and out of one. Here’s the whole saga. It was a good buy at $34,998. Only one or two 911’s have been offered by CarMax for less than $40,000 since. I paid $2,999 for MaxCare – $50 deductible and good until 75,000 miles. The 911 had just under 34,000 miles when I bought it. I had Intersport do a PPO when I bought it and they found $2,000 in service that had not been done, and CarMax immediately remedied. Repairs at CarMax using MaxCare totalled $4,100, and included replacing the serpentine belts and water pump belt, inner and outer tie rods, hood and trunk supports, ignition coil screws and spark plugs, the known Porsche issue of a bad factory battery cable (11 hours of labor- $1200!), power regulator, and one of my favorites – replace the crappy Porsche cup holders at a cost of $285 – CarMax broke them during other service work! My first service I did at a Porsche dealer thinking it would be smart to baseline the car at a dealer, at a cost of $648 – and turns out it was just an oil change. I was a fool. The next one I did at Intersport was $250. I replaced the rock hard summer tires with all seasons for $950 and dramatically improved the ride. The brake pads and rotors were replaced within the first year at a local Goodyear shop for $1,124. I spent another $700 last week doing the 60,000 mile service in preparation to sell the car, including some make fluid swaps like rear differential, brakes flush, and power steering flush. I had hoped to demonstrate my good faith to the next buyer by going all in on service. A little bittersweet to do all of that at Intersport and then have them make me an offer on the car I just paid them to prep…for them! But it was all fair. Unfortunately, Intersport declined to transfer the MaxCare plan. Fortunately, for the first time I tested CarMax’s MaxCare refund policy for the unused portion. CarMax refunded $1,119 of the $2,999 I paid. Once again, the $1,880 net cost of MaxCare was far less than the $4,100 cost of repairs. I stand by MaxCare as a bargain for high end cars that are expensive to fix. That said, maintenance costs were not insignificant, and writing this reminds me that it is terribly important when the car is eligible to be returned, to push CarMax to fix things like brakes and tires that may not be below the failure threshold, and are not covered by MaxCare, but will be expensive to do once you own the car.
I’ll have a cold Pilsner in Etta’s honor. She was my “starter” 911, thinking when I bought it I’d sell it without much loss if I hated it or trade up if I loved it. I loved it. Drove it hard sometimes and it handled and accelerated like nothing I’ve owned before. The only complaint I had was despite mounting all season tires, road noise was annoying. I’m cool with the terrific engine growl but tire drone was draining. I have test driven a 2015 911 (991.1) and the extra five inches of wheelbase made for a far more comfortable ride. I’d welcome the chance to own a later model 911 and that may or may not be in my future. At this time, CarMax has almost no 911’s! We shall see what’s next for the fleet.
I shared my 1,200 mile elk country drive here. But I also took a far shorter, but exhilarating romp through the Shenandoah mountains not too long ago that seemed designed for the Porsche 911. I read about this loop in Car and Driver magazine as an alternative to Skyline drive and thought I’d give it a try. Took Route 7W to Berryville then south on US 340 to Front Royal. From there eight miles west of Front Royal Virginia on SR 55 until the borough of Waterlick, and then a left on 678 Fort Valley Road. That’s when it got interesting.
The road is just west of the mountain spine and and has zero traffic through 28 miles of turns. Maybe a top speed of 60 mph here and there and some hard braking and accelerating but the field of view is always good and safe.
The road comes to a tee and a hard left onto Route 675 – Camp Roosevelt Rd. The turns are tighter and closer together for a fast 12 mile dash down the hill to Luray, home of Luray Caverns. Then it’s 17 miles through Shenandoah National Park up and through Thornton’s Gap to Sperryville. After all the hard driving, it was relaxing to return through 50 miles of rolling countryside to Gainesville – then highway home.
The Porsche 911 is just so engaging to drive even though it’s a base model with only 325hp. The most I’ve done in the car was 140 mph on a wide open I-95 down south, but the windy roads through the hills and mountains really gets the blood flowing. Pretty much anything will do 140 mph nowadays!
Goodbye Etta. I don’t know whether ownership costs were good or bad. I know that I first went to Le Mans in 1981 and watched these iconic sports cars go toe to toe with more modern machinery, and wanted to own one. Now I have, and it was everything I wanted it to be. I can confidently say I will own another. Maybe not my next unicorn, but I will own another. Thanks for taking this journey with me!
The word is out and several of you have written me about this. Seems too good to be true. But it is. I’ve booked my first 24 hour test drive for a Mercedes I have inbound. The test drive is limited to 150 miles. (The car will do 186 mph. Would be a hoot to max out mileage in 45-50 minutes!) And as I’ve written before, the customer has the most leverage to have repairs done that even MaxCare doesn’t cover during the return period. Plenty of time to get a PPO. Enjoy.
Happy New Year! Our first car for 2021. This 2019 Corvette ZR1 is not the first 755hp Corvette we’ve seen at CarMax (check out this Great Pumpkin from October 2020) but it is the most expensive at $129,998. In fact, it’s the most expensive unicorn ever offered by CarMax by a good $10,000. The ZR1 sold new for about the same price it’s offered here a year later. I prefer depreciation – this thing may appreciate! Special thanks to reader Cannon for bringing it to my attention!
Familiar C7 interior with an eight speed automatic. I like my interiors pre-stained for my coffee spillage.
It’s the fastest Corvette to date with a 2.8 second 0-60mph sprint and a top end of 212 mph. The Corvette team chief called this Corvette “the most we know how to do” according to this Car and Driver review. There will be faster C8’s for sure, but for now this LT5 supercharged 6.2 liter 755 hp V-8 is the bomb. With only 5,000 miles, like the October ZR1, it’s still under manufacturer warranty – but of course I would still spring for MaxCare and drive the snot out of it up to 150,000 miles. Well, I would if I fit. Corvettes don’t have the front seat room that my 911 has. So if you’re shorter than 6’4″ but your pants include deep pockets, your 2019 Corvette ZR1 chariot awaits here in Garland, Texas.
Of course Santa would drive a Ford F-350 King Ranch dualie, with a whopping 925 lb-ft of torque from a 6.7 liter turbo-diesel V-8. With 4WD and 18,000 lb towing capacity, this truck has all the oomph needed to deliver toys around the world. And automated cruise control (driving around the world gets long) and heated seats/steering wheel for the cold winter night. Find it here in Irving, Texas, if you really want a big ole truck. Please have a happy and safe holiday.
Relieved and impressed when CarMax carries high end CL-class Mercedes and pleased today they have two, albeit both are one-accident cars. Let’s start with the more exotic and angry AMG version of the CL-series, the 2012 Mercedes CL63 AMG. Selling new for maybe $150k new it’s way discounted at $37k now. It’s a wonderful coupe with a 536hp 5.5 liter V-8, and 0-60mph in four seconds flat – so says Car and Driver in this review.
The interior of the CL’s are identical to the interior of my S600 – the difference is all behind the B-pillars. I never have passengers in the back of my S-class and seems like a waste to have all that tail behind my car. I still think there’s much to be said for a two door S-class coupe, which is what this CL is.
And it’s hard to argue with a hand-built AMG motor in a coupe. Alas, this one is a one accident CL63 found here in Tinley Park, Illinois. If you’re new here, you need to know I highly recommend MaxCare for when this high end Mercedes melts down, and it will.
If you’re more secure than me and don’t care for all that SMG horsepower, here’s a very nice 2013 CL550 coupe. About the same mileage, about the same number of wrecks (1), and ever so slightly better appointed, this car is selling at a $7,000 discount over its AMG cousin.
Same interior, although black, the CL550 has night vision assist and the CL63 does not. My 2010 S600 has night vision and I’ll let you in on a little secret – it’s totally unnecessary. I though I needed to have it because A) I HATE having dummy blanks in a dashboard that make it clear there was something available that I do not have, and B) I have turned on the night vision in my S600 and it’s really not all that useful. But the CL550 has it and the CL63 does not. You decide if you need it. Regardless, here’s a nice review of this once-$130k coupe. You can’t go wrong with either of these high end German cars. This 2013 CL550 is here in Laurel, Maryland, way too close to me!
Early December and not a lot of unicorns on the CarMax lots, so why not write a long piece about a long road trip in one of my mine. My time with the 2008 Porsche 911 (Etta – covered here) will soon come to an end. I plan to sell her with at least 10,000 miles left on the MaxCare warranty, and I’m down to about 15,000 miles left today. I’ll be keeping long distance travel to a minimum, but wanted to share one of the most rewarding drives I’ve taken this year, a leisurely and long distance 1,200 miler over four days in May 2020 when I needed to get away from the pandemic and cabin fever. For the record, I encountered fewer people for the whole journey than a single trip to the grocery store. The road trip only made me love this sports car more. I plan to buy another one. Let’s get started.
Started the day crossing the Potomac River into Maryland (and back) on the historic White’s Ferry for a long run on the C&O path with my best bud.Day 1 – Despite the sports car/race car ride, six hours in the 911 on back roads was pure joy.
Day 1 – The goal was to stay off the interstates and enjoy the 911 on rural roads and byways. Sometimes I take my cues from a book I read in the early 80’s by William Least Heat Moon, a dude who dealt with divorce by quitting his job and driving around the country in a 1975 Ford Econoline. The book was called Blue Highways, the color of byways on a road map. Mr. Moon said, “When you’re travelling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” I decided that pretty much all of my stops would be places you’d only see on the way to something else truly spectacular, but there’s wasn’t any such spectacular destination. Except for one or two. From Leesburg, Virginia I headed west on Route 7 and US 50 first to Romney, WV. Did the quick stop at the Indian Mound cemetery, but my real quest was automotive and unfulfilling. Back in the mid-80’s I owned a pair of German Ford Fiestas, and in the early 90’s while driving through Romney I saw more Ford Fiestas as daily drivers than anywhere outside of Europe. Alas, by 2020 they have been replaced by PT Cruisers. Swarms of PT Cruisers in Romney now. Never knew why there were Fiestas back in the day or PT’s now.
Also the site of Fort Pearsall, the frontier fort of 1756.
Not just a Fiesta….a Fiesta S!
Continued on to the Fairfax Stone, the source of the Potomac River and a historical novelty I always wanted to see. Nice back roads connecting US 50 and US 48 and before I knew it 150 miles of the journey were behind me.
US 219 was the backbone of my journey north and south for much of the trip. Loved it.
Zoomed up US 219 from the Fairfax Stone about a hundred miles to another place that’s been pretty special to me. The Flight 93 Memorial off US 30 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The tragedy that was 9/11 played a pivotal part in my government career, and only months after the attack and before there was any memorial at all I brought my pre-teen sons here for a visit. It was sobering then and remains so now. It’s near nothing, but for me close to everything.
On a less serious note. Unplanned stop on US 30 – the most humongous junk yard I’ve ever seen. Stoytown Auto Wreckers. It was like seeing the Grand Canyon. Check it out here. They have drone footage!
Back on US 219 I motored the 911 north another 100 miles to what would be my “base camp” for the next three days, the Fairfield Inn and Suites in DuBois, Pennsylvania. On an April road trip I stayed in a couple of hotels and during the-then height of Covid I found myself scrubbing rooms too often. This time I figured I’d limit exposure by cleaning one hotel room once, and do day trips from there. And after six hours and 318 miles cleaning a hotel room was the last thing I wanted to do. And the Fairfield Inn gets you a discount at the Station 101 Pub and Kitchen next door. Highly recommend it. Takeout every night.
I get asked a lot, “Chuck – how do you stay so fit on the road?”. It’s the Straub Light beer – guy’s gotta have some discipline driving like me. Not quite the Lewis Hamilton diet but he only rolls for an hour or so.
Didn’t see much of DuBois, but I do recall asking a good friend who knows Pennsylvania well if it was pronounced “Du-Bwah”, and he told me if I called it that I would likely get my ass beat. “Doo-boyz” it is.
Thanksgiving colors. Symbolic of American exploration. I’m sure there’s a “crossing the Rubicon” metaphor I’m missing here. Also, we’ll ignore the Italians own Jeep for today.
Happy Thanksgiving to the CarMax Unicorn Blog readers. Grateful you indulge my car hobby. Just for fun, the link to my CarMax Thanksgiving essay from 2018 is below. Helluva lotta work went into it so will just provide the link. Writing a ten car piece today and still need to gorge on football and turkey. Enjoy the day – Chuck.
