Did you finance your Delorean?

[David T]

It would be nice. My pre-approval with good credit is 5%. Very good credit (720 and above), will get you 4% from what USAA tells me. I just went back yesterday and re-requested an approval since my earlier one expired. Every 45 to 90 days you have to do this unfortunately but this is necessary when shopping for a D as how it takes time to travel, take time off from work etc. Off topic, something to factor in as well: Every time I go somewhere it costs me a MINIMUM of $200 dollars if I drive (Hotel and Gas), so factor that in as well. Being old school, I am not comfortable with just looking at pictures. I have to go see the car. Flying to Texas or Florida in September, from Michigan will cost me more obviously so factor that in with the cost of the car #projectdelorean.

When buying a used car, especially an old one, borrowing money is not the best strategy. Not only must you have the money to buy the car you MUST budget and be able to handle the costs of the inevitable repairs the car will require. The very worst scenario is where you borrow to your limit, the car breaks down and it will take more than you can afford to fix it up. Now you are stuck with the payments on a car you can't use and can't fix. If you try to sell it to get out of the payments you will take a big loss because it won't run so you can't pay off the loan by selling it. Now what do you do? Borrow more money to fix the car?

[bfloyd]

I paid for mine outright in cash... as in a stack of $100 bills. In hindsight, the method in which I paid for it was something you'd read about in the news of a Craigslist horror story, but clearly I wasn't thinking about anything but the car when i bought it. I drove (alone by myself) 2 states over to meet a Craigslist seller I'd never met before with $9k in cash riding shotgun in the front seat of my truck. Probably one of the dumbest things I've ever done. The whole transaction turned out well, I didn't get killed, the truck didn't get stolen, or arrive to find no Delorean.

I own business with my wife (movie industry) and work a day job as well, so the Delorean for me is more of a mid-life crisis toy. I didn't finance our daily drivers either. Only thing I've ever financed in the last 15 years has been my house and our business. House is almost paid for and the business will be in about two years.

My wife and I agreed to about $3,000 a year from our family budget for the Delorean, and that's something realistic that I can live with. I'm doing all of the work myself, learning more about the car each day as I go.

[Chris 16409]

I got a loan at my local credit union for my DeLorean. The only reason I was able to afford it was because I still lived at home at the time. It was either move out and pay rent or buy the car I've always wanted. I decided to stay at home for a few more years. I have been lucky (knock on wood) and drove it as my daily driver for 4 years and did my maintenance/upgrades on the weekends. Once I started teaching and earning a living, I was able to pay the loan off early. I believe I financed around $18,000, and paid the rest in cash. Had I saved up the money and bought one outright, I probably would have paid more. My car was driven and well maintained all it's life. It had more miles than most DeLorean cars, but was much more reliable. It feels good to own it now though.

[dn010]

I traded for mine, I got the D + an additional $1K with it. Back in '02 though...

[SKnight]

I got a loan for mine through my credit union with a really good interest rate. I also put a decent down payment on it, so the monthly bills aren't too bad. As long as you can live with the payments and are able to budget for maintenance/upgrades then there's nothing wrong with financing.

[Dangermouse]

I made my PO an offer he couldn't refuse............

[davidc89]

I financed mine, but it was no easy task. A lot of banks turned me down because of the make of the car, not because of my credit score. They couldn't put a value on it, even though they had NADA guidelines. If they did give me an offer it was a short term high interest type loan. After a lot of rejections and I was able to find a bank that believed in my dream as well. I had never had a loan before though either and I am 26 years old. So that probably didn't help much either. I bought a good car that didn't need a lot of stuff either. But if something does happen I am able to pay for parts as well. They need a little more love, but it is an old used car. Its to be expected.

[LordFly]

I financed mine, and I'd do it again in a heart beat. Coming up with a few hundred a month is nothing, but saving up $20K+ takes time. A lot more time than I felt like waiting to get one. If you're just scraping by and it's the decision between food and a car, maybe financing a classic car is not he best. But if you've got a reasonable amount of disposable income, financing a classic car is no different than financing a new car (a side from the fact that there are repair bills to pay). Ultimately it just comes down to how good you are with your money. The worst that can happen is you lose you job and have to sell the car, pay off the remainder of the loan, and use the rest to live off while job hunting.

And on those days when you hate your job, driving your DeLorean to work makes it a little bit better

[berickson926]

I financed but it was probably the worst car buying process I could imagine. Restrictions on financing and difficulties in sorting out the paperwork became a nightmare when combined with other issues I had with the actual classic car dealership.

I got a good rate from my credit union similar to what was mentioned by others in this thread. The CU was also far more lenient about duration worked at job, salary, down payments, etc. compared to classic car finance companies I spoke to.

Once I had my loan pre-approval I thought I was in the clear to make an offer. The offer was accepted by the dealer and I tried to finalize details with the CU. Only at this point did the CU try to back out repeatedly for reasons not initially disclosed to me. I ended up having to battle the them for weeks and supposedly the CU CEO had to approve the deal personally in the end.

A few things I had to painfully learn throughout the whole ordeal:

-CU didn't really want to deal with financing a car from a private seller, so I focused on cars held by dealerships.
-CU only allowed the car to be registered prior to sale in your home state (CA for me, which also requires valid smog - the smog cert is another fun story).
-CU only wanted car purchases for relatively new/used cars (I think they told me only up to 10 years old).
-CU tried to say they will only approve loans for only the bottom end NADA guide valuation on used cars. That is $16k for the DeLorean which was not in line with my actual offer, the condition of the car, or my loan approval limits.

I had gone with this same CU to finance my daily driver which was not difficult at all. I made a serious oversight in assuming buying the DeLorean would be an equally painless experience.

The car I have now is actually the second DeLorean I tried to buy! I ran into the 'no out of state cars' issue early on.

[Gregadeth]

For those who financed through a credit union with a low interest rate, can I ask what kind of CU? I also plan on financing part of my purchase but so far the credit unions I've contacted - including the one through my employer - won't finance cars older than 7 years. Their only exception is taking a personal or unsecured loan which inevitably has a much higher rate.