Blogging my nationwide hunt for affordable CarMax enthusiast cars. Automotive Unicorns.
Have never seen a Jaguar V8 this cheap on the CarMax website. If you like an XF, even with only 380hp, and you like a bargain, this one’s for you. Obviously a MaxCare candidate but probably out the door with a recent British sedan with a warranty for $15,000. Find it here in Las Vegas.
Wouldn’t ordinarily write twice in one day (mostly because I always lose much time when I start by deleting the 30 comments spammed from hairstylists and escorts from India – bizarre) but this 2011 Jaguar XK is too pretty and too low priced not to get on the blog quickly. Seems to be a bargain unicorn.
The Jaguar XK is an elegant design and a decent sports car, and always tempting as a daily driver. I’ve shipped in a couple of XK’s and XKR’s and always regretted not buying, and even made this ridiculous trek to eyeball one that was selling for $26,998. yet for $23,998 this one is way lower than most 2010’s and 2011’s I’ve seen at CarMax.
Car and Driver reviewed the 2011 XK when new, and was most complimentary of the 385hp 5.0l V-8, an 85hp increase over the previous generation XK and good for a 5.0 second 0-60mph run, as well as all of the accoutrements – heated and air conditioned seats, heated steering wheel, 525-watt Bowers & Wilkins stereo – but were not fans of the unreliable electronics. Of course, that’s why I’d add $3-4,000 for MaxCare just in case the car fails. The car was over $80,000 new and is almost a quarter that eight years later. Find this one owner car Jaguar XK here in Atlanta, Georgia.
Thought I wrote about this unicorn – the first year Jaguar offered 420hp supercharged V-8 engines in the XF line – but I suspect it was a car that was gone as fast as it was listed. It returned recently and yesterday dropped $1,000 to a bargain price of $14,998. The car sold for over $60,000 new. It’s fairly well appointed with heating and cooling seats, heated steering wheel, blind spot monitor, rear view camera, 20″ wheels, and Bluetooth.
Was pleasantly surprised by this Car and Driver review that gave the car kudos for a decent ride on high performance tires, .87g on the skidpad, and a five second 0-60mph run. CarMax has about 11,000 cars under $15,000 and under my self imposed mileage cap of 60,000 miles, but this is the one I’d pick as a daily driver.
Of course, by the time you add MaxCare, and I wouldn’t own it without the warranty, and taxes, it would be a $20,000 car. Find this one owner car here in Salt Lake City, Utah. 
HONORABLE MENTION!
THESE WOULDN’T HURT MY HEAD IF I HAD TO DRIVE THEM.
Another “didn’t know these were a thing” unicorns. Looks like a street legal Jaguar race car, and understand it’s the fastest Jaguar street-legal car they’ve ever put on the road. The beast has a 592hp V-8 (never in an XE before), sub-4 0-60mph, and claimed 200mph top speed. Check out this Motor Trend review. Splitters and diffusers and wings and everything but a roll cage!
The dealer told me its one of five in the US (and I can find only four others for sale around the country as of this writing so maybe so!). Personally eyeballed this at the Jaguar dealer in Chantilly, Virginia for sale for $188,495. Posting here because A) in three years I hope to find one on a CarMax lot for $75,000 B) I was actually at the Jaguar dealer to test drive a used Mercedes S65 prior to requesting a CarMax transfer of a similar S65, and C) it’s just too damned cool not to share! Here’s the odd thing. I eyeballed the blue model and yet online here’s the listing for an identical car at the dealership – it’s a Valencia Orange Ultra Metallic model. Hmmm….perhaps the blue one is already gone and replaced?
Thanks to car spotter Hans Mertens for sharing this 2014 Jaguar XFR-S unicorn with me. Didn’t know Jaguar stuffed the 550hp supercharged V-8 in this mid-sized sedan. Car and Driver review estimated a low four second 0-60 run and a top speed of 186 mph. The wing was optional and functional.
Suspension is upgraded significantly over even the XFR. The interior is pretty standard XF/XK with some better seats with XFR-S logos. Believe this was a $100,000 car five years ago, and you can find it here in Reno for only $40,998. It’s a two owner car (California and Nevada) and not sure if that includes the thief who stole it for three days in 2015. Wouldn’t matter to me – kind of adds to the mystique! Buy the MaxCare warranty and drive it until it blows up.
This 2011 Jaguar XJ Supercharged has been on and off the website for a few weeks, and it always vanished before I could catch it for a blog post. So thought I’d do a quick one. The four most attractive things about this unicorn are that it’s a big luxurious Jaguar, it has a 470hp supercharged V-8 engine, it’s a single-owner California car, and it’s only $24,998.
Very few supercharged XJ’s on CarMax drop to this price. It was once a $90,000 Jaguar. The down side? It’s not an XJ L, if that matters to you, and the plastic “stay the hell outta here” plastic engine cover is really dusty.
The MaxCare warranty is a must to shift the repair risk to CarMax, and no idea what that will be. Other than that, there’s a lot to like about this car. Check out this Car and Driver review for an expert opinion. Find this car here in Los Angeles. 
This is the seventh Jaguar XJ8 offered in the two years I’ve been blogging on CarMax unicorns – a 2009 XJ8 L with only 46,000 miles – all in New Mexico. You either like these old school Jaguars and they make you nostalgic, or you think they’re dated and deserved to be extinct. I happen to like them as an almost retro, comfortable highway cruiser, albeit with only 300 hp from the 4.2 liter V-8, and few modern features. It’s the British Mercury Grand Marquis, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
This one is a bit high priced at $20,998 (cheapest was this 2007 at $14,998) and yet if you like it, and even better, if you like getting a five year 100,000 mile MaxCare warranty on a 10 year old extinct luxury car, perhaps it’s for you. We’ll see how long this one is on the market. It opened at $19,998 and was bumped up $1,000 the next day. On the other hand, the last one I tracked here spent more than a year on CarMax lots from Florida to California (never dropping in price from $18,998!) and only vanished last week.
Find this three owner 2009 Jaguar XJ8 L here in Albuquerque, NM. CarMax only sells European cars not more than 10 years old, and this X350 model only ran through 2009, so this is the final year to find these with the MaxCare warranty!
Sigh. If you’ve read my search for Guenther II you know I’ve wrung my hands over the wheel of several Jaguar XKR’s.
Looks Aston Martin like, fast as hell, and who cares about reliability for the supercharged V-8 and ZF six speed – MaxCare is a bargain – where else can you get 0-60 in four seconds flat and a once-$100,000 Car for $25k?
Here’s the Car and Driver review from back in the day, consistent with all my XKR test drives. Still on my bucket list for when my 911 blows up.
CarMax Jaguar XKR’s have always been $29k and up in the 2 1/2 years I’ve been tracking them. This two-owner bargain is here in California. 
This 2015 Jaguar XF Supercharged is posted as a six cylinder but is clearly a 5.0l V-8. All the other CarMax XF’s are sixes, and this one might be a bit underpriced for a 470hp mid-sized sedan. 
Here’s a review comparing the XF’s – not as fast as an XFR but not a slug at 4.9 seconds to 60! Find it here in Henderson, Nevada. 
Wrote about this 2009 Jaguar XJ8 L unicorn a year ago almost to the day in this post. It was in Fort Myers, Florida, selling for $18,998 with 58,000 miles. Of the 200 cars I’m tracking in my CarMax profile, this one has been in the bin the longest. By miles. Literally. Was surprised to see it turn up this week 3,000 miles away in Fairfield, California, halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento, and the home of Travis Air Force Base and the Jelly Belly headquarters (those are two separate factoids).
I mistakenly wrote in August 2018 that it had sold, since it vanished from the net for so long but it had not. Oddly, in one year there’s been no price reduction, despite possibly Continue reading “A Sad Record Setting Jaguar Journey – Unloved XJ8 Wandering Out West”