Blogging my nationwide hunt for affordable CarMax enthusiast cars. Automotive Unicorns.
Hope you all got a bit of a break this Columbus Day. Sadly there just aren’t any good Italian cars available at CarMax to make this post meaty. Guess they know better than to sell the Alfa Romeo Quadrifoglio – a truly hot car and unreliable car that would bankrupt MaxCare. The Fiat 124 Spider is made in Japan, and the 500 Abarth in Mexico. But the Jeep Renegade is made in Italy, so there’s that. Enjoy!
This is one handsome, mid-sized Mercedes Benz unicorn, luxuriously equipped (hence the model “E550 Luxury”), at a ridiculously low price. Adaptive cruise control? Check. All wheel drive? Yup. Adjustable suspension? Absolutely. Blind-spot, lane departure, rear view camera, Bluetooth, Harman Kardon sound, panoramic sunroof, air-conditioned and heated seats….it goes on and on. Check out this little graphic included in the CarMax ad!
The 2011 Mercedes E550 packs a 5.5 liter V-8 rated at 382 horsepower. Mated to a seven-speed automatic the sedan is good for a 0-60 mph run in a hair over five seconds. Here’s a lengthy NewCarTestDrive.com review of all the 2011 E-class lineup, including details on the E550. Looks like from their notes this car sold for over $60,000 new nine years ago, and driven only 4,000 miles annually seems to be a damned good deal. Of course there are cheaper, comparable E550’s out there but none that are eligible for MaxCare protection against out of pocket repairs. You want MaxCare. There will be repairs.
The features on this car remind me a great deal of the S-class cars I’ve owned. I’ve been corresponding privately with some readers pondering the German unicorn market and enjoying depreciated, luxury rides protected by MaxCare. I would very much recommend this car as a safe entry into the market. Find this well-appointed, single-owner 2011 Mercedes E550 here in Frederick, Maryland.
When it rains it pours. Eagle eyed blog reader Mustafa brought this rare as hell Audi W12 to my attention. He has one. I want one. It’s reserved (sort of) for me. Now I’ve got to choose between the Mercedes S600 I own, the Mercedes S65 being transferred in for me, and the Audi A8 W12 on hold. Good problem to have but even more stuck.
Mustafa has shared with me the engineering marvel that is the W12. A high tech pair of V-6’s is how I understand it. It’s a good 500 hp from a normally aspirated 6.3l motor.
Creature comforts in the A8 are probably better than the other cars. This one is not as fully outfitted as It could be (no Exclusive package) but it ain’t stripped. But as with the other cars it’s often just me driving solo in these. My S600 is my “company” car.
So here’s where we are: 2010 Mercedes S600 I own is paid off, and with 71,000 miles I have another 40 months and 54,000 miles of MaxCare. It’s speedy and serene. The S65 is a 600hp speed racer version of my car. It once cost over $200,000, and that intrigued me somehow. Also only 35,000 miles, so I can reset with MaxCare for another five years and 90,000 miles. But the A8 W12 is even more rare, more quiet, and has an accident free 15,000 miles on it. I dig that luxury back seat and I’ve never owned an Audi. And I can reset MaxCare to five years and probably 110,000 miles! But the transfer fee is $2,000. Ugh. All three cars have significantly different V-12’s but are almost the same in speed – the “lightweight” all aluminum Audi makes up for lack of torque with weight savings. Will probably transfer it in. Would be a dream to have all three side by side for a drive! For what it’s worth the S65 and A8 are about the same price – $35k or so.
Saw this $86,000 Mustang show up today and wondered at the price. Googled it and sure enough it’s a 760hp exotic Mustang GT500. That’s Hellcat territory. Just days after I brag about the 662hp 2014 Shelby GT500 being the most horsepower you can buy from CarMax!
The car sold new at $81,000 if its a base model or $95,000 if its a CFTP (carbon fiber track pack). I can’t tell. But it’s $86k now. Here’s the gushing Car and Driver review where they tried hard to tame the wheel spin to get a 3.7 sec 0-60 run. The car is here in Gainesville Florida.
If you guessed 662 horsepower you’d be right! The 2014 Mustang Shelby GT500 with a supercharged 5.8 liter V-8 tops the General Motors’ 6.2 liter motors in the Corvette Z06’s, the Camaro ZL1’s, and the Cadillac CTS-V by 12 horsepower. And while I search everyday, CarMax has yet to carry a 700+ horsepower Hellcat from Dodge. Even the sixth generation Mustang Shelby GT350’s available at CarMax only ponied up 526 horsepower. So this is as good as it gets for car peeps who want a unicorn with straight line wheel spin bragging rights!
Ford produced 5,730 Shelby GT500’s in 2014, 4,816 as coupes and the rest as convertibles. Haggerty lists them as collectibles. Maybe so – they sold new in the mid-$50,000 range and CarMax is offering this one for $50,998 – not sure I’ve ever seen that little depreciation in a six year old car.
This Car and Driver review of the 2013 car (largely unchanged for 2014) notes a 3.5 second 0-60 mph run, and surprising to me, a 1.0g on the lateral skidpad. I was under the impression live axle Mustangs handled horribly until the 2015 models went independent. But what do I know?
Find this old-school, low mileage hot rod here in Charlotte, North Carolina. You may want to spring for MaxCare, then head to the drag strip quick-fast!
I love my 2010 Mercedes S600 unicorn, purchased in February 2019 and chronicled here. Last week I returned from a 6,700 mile road trip in the S600, driving over 100 hours from Virginia to Oregon and back. Had some 10-12 hour days behind the wheel and out west some high-speed cruising (admitting NOTHING here!) and could not have been more comfortable. But a nearly identical 2010 Mercedes S65 AMG surfaced at CarMax this week and I have it on hold. I am paralyzed by this choice and welcome comments.
My 2010 S600 has a 5.5l twin-turbo V-12 offering 510hp and 612 lb-ft of torque. The 2010 S65 AMG pumps out 604hp and 738 lb-ft of torque from a hand-built 6.0l twin turbo V-12. Always wanted a 600hp car. I can vouch for the silky smooth acceleration and ride of the S600, and I’ve read the S65 is more aggressive and snarly. Performance-wise the reviews suggest they are almost the same despite the horsepower difference. The S65, like me, carries some extra weight. Price-wise, the S65 cost about $50,000 more than the S600, meaning someone shelled out a good $200,000+ ten years ago for this S65. I do get a little giddy driving cars I can’t afford new.
The 2010 S65 is selling for $35,998, a little more than what I paid for my S600 about 20 months ago. It’s a one-owner, one-accident Florida car. My S600 is (counting me) a two-owner Pennsylvania-Virginia car and is (knock on wood) accident free. The kicker is the S65 has only 35,000 miles on it and I just turned over 70,000 in the S600. Buying the S65 would be resetting the clock for me, giving me another five years of MaxCare and perhaps 90,000 warranty miles. My S600 has another 40 months/55,000 miles of transferable warranty. And I just did the $2,500 Service B before going on the coast to coast trip. What to so?! Of course, would offer the S600 for sale here first, with the same terms I sold my S55 AMG – car guys don’t screw car guys. Will tell you everything I know about the S600. As of this writing I’m working on transferring the S65 from Florida to Virginia. Will decide when it gets here. Until then feel free to chime in with wisdom.
Let’s not pretend this 2011 Buick Lucerne Super unicorn is an enthusiast’s car. Yes it’s extinct, with 2011 being the last year (the car suffered the humiliation of having it’s successor come out a year earlier), and it has the “venerable” 4.6l V-8 Northstar pumping out only 292hp to the front wheels. But the Super has the Magnetic Ride Control, an adaptive damping system that helps this 4,000 lb car wallow less , Bluetooth, seat heaters, heated steering wheel, and lots of room in the front, rear, and trunk. And it has the only-in-a-Buick telltale ventiports in the front fenders, four on each side for a V-8. These go back over 70 years – read here for a fascinating history of the ports in Buicks (long before stick-on ports were sold at K-Mart and added to Civics).
And to go way back on the nostalgia trail, this Buick has the rare (?) landau roof – the fake convertible vinyl that takes us back to the 1920’s and 1930’s when automobiles hoped to replicate the style of horse and carriage coach builders. While you probably think I have a deep knowledge of these automotive topics, I stole this vinyl top background too from an eBay Motors blog. Odd it has a sunroof in the fake convertible roof. No shame.
You won’t see yourself coming and going on the road in a Buick Lucerne Super – as best I can tell from the Buick forums, there were 20,000 Lucernes sold in 2011, the final year, and less than 10 percent were V-8 Supers. And I can’t imagine too many had the landau roof. Maybe this car appeals to me conceptually as a lazy, comfortable highway cruiser since I’m writing from a hotel room in Chicago, near the end of a 7,000 mile road trip in my S600 – the subject of an upcoming piece. There’s something about a living room on wheels.
For the record, I’m certainly not bad mouthing Buicks (my wife owns and Encore!), and I learned long ago that there is an ardent enthusiast group out there for every single vehicle and SOMEONE wants this car. If that someone is you, this single owner, accident free 2011 Buick Lucerne Super is here in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. And to think you can add MaxCare and protect the car for five more years, and probably another 25-50,000 miles!
This 2013 Jaguar XF Supercharged unicorn is a really nice all around sleeper. Nice sheet metal, nice wheels, burgundy (not red) paint, and the sleek silver and black interior with the pop up shift knob all suggest an okay sedan from the UK. But under the hood is a pretty powerful 470hp, supercharged 5.0l V-8, and supported by an eight-speed transmission and a 4,100lb weight the car moves to 60mph in about five seconds. Not bad.
The car also has blind spot monitoring, heated steering wheel, air conditioned and heated seats, and a rear view camera. Not at all stripped. There are about a half-dozen comparable supercharged XF’s on Autotrader confirming this isn’t a bad price for one, but this is the only one out there eligible for the MaxCare bumper-to-bumper warranty – a must. The cheapest XF Supercharged I’ve seen with CarMax is a 2009 for $14,998, and the only other one I covered was this 2015 model for $28,998. This 2013 model nicely threads the needle in price, age, and mileage. Find this one-owner, accident free Jaguar here in Tucson, Arizona.
Every time I see a second generation Acura RL on the road, which is not often, I’m fascinated that Acura made a car that just didn’t sell in big numbers (the low production NSX notwithstanding). The second-gen RL was the Acura flagship from 2005 to 2012, and sales opened at 17,000 in 2005 and dropped every year – 2,000 2010’s and only 400 2012’s. The 2010 Acura RL listed here sold for maybe $47,000 and included AWD, all wheel steering, and a 300 hp , 3.7L six cylinder motor that Top Speed reviewed and had lots of great technical and engineering things that impressed them that went over my head. Maybe you’ll get it.
The RL also came with Bluetooth, seat heaters, rear sunshade and rear view camera as standard, and a handsome interior. My thinking is the Acura RL is kind of cheating when it comes to unicorns. Not many of them and probably unfamiliar to most folks, so you get some exclusivity and style. It’s a quality car, so probably no need for MaxCare. And with low miles and a low price it’s hard to go wrong on this Acura. No need to go out on a limb as with some of my other recommendations. And just occurred to me in three years this is the first Acura I’ve blogged about! Find this two-owner, accident free car here in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
I used to commute to work on Rt 267 in Virginia, a toll road between Dulles Airport and I-495, the Capital Beltway around Washington DC. The toll road often backs up, but the high-speed, High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes include exemptions for clean energy/hybrids. Always got a kick out of 20 mpg SUV hybrids in those lanes, saving the planet. Now you can too with this flagship Mercedes S400 Hybrid unicorn. Looks the same inside and out as my V-12 S600 (with the exception of no night vision).
The hybrid S400 has a 3.5l V-6 good for 295hp – not a lot and the car isn’t fast, and yet it’s as comfortable and smooth as any other S-Class. This Car and Driver review back in 2010 noted the car was only good for a seven second 0-60mph run. This was the “cheapest” S-Class back in the day at $94,500, and is a real bargain at $19,998. Find it here in Norwood, Massachusetts.
