So I've had my heart set on getting in to a 49-52 chevy for quite some time now. My '95 Isuzu Rodeo has been living on borrowed time and i'm ready to move on before she nickel and dimes me to death. I've just started a good job that's pretty much recession proof and will have a steady income that's at least double what I've ever earned anytime in my life. My question is about how to go about financing an older car. Has anybody done it here? If so, who did you use? Please school me on the caveats of doing something like this and provide links if you have any. I know there is a very strong argument for "if you can't afford to pay for it up front, then you can't afford it." This is true and how I have lived my life. Now I'm in the position to make a larger purchase and I can either finance a new car, and there isn't a new vehicle out there that I particularly care for, or finance an older, turnkey car that I truly want and can drive daily. I feel that if I end up buying a newer-used car car for 5-10 G's then I'm in the same position 5 years from now with a vehicle that has depreciated to the point of being near worthless. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all, NAES
I think your mind is in the right direction regarding buying a used newer car, and where you will be down the road.. There are some "classic" car dealers that might finance. But in today's market, you could probably buy for cash a better car than the down payment on theirs. I would try for a personal loan if you have to, and buy private party. I for one am the "if you cannot afford it, don't buy" I have a credit score of 0... None.
Work for a bit save some cash drive that crap car into the ground shop around for a good project car buy the best car your can afford have fun and enjoy it, but don't expect an old car too be more economical or practiacl than a cheap newer one Recession proof job? You working for an undertaker now?
Check into collector car loans. You will need an apraisal of the car you choose and your loan will be based on this. Most collector car loans have a better percent rate than standard bank loans. and the payments will be a lot lower...ghost
I sell classic cars at our dealership. Financing is almost impossible unless you have an extremely strong relationship with your lender. Good luck and do yourself a big favor...don't start shopping until your financing is arranged.
good sound advice ..i would respect this coming from a guy that makes his living trying to sell collector cars....good job bobwop
First Capital one will not do a classic, two they will not do a non franchise dealer purchase. Plus their rates are terrible. Best bet and what I use if and when I feel like I need to is a personal unsecured loan from the bank or the house 2nd and write in the interest off. The first requires a large amount of Bank interaction and it takes forever to setup in any large amount. The second is doable as long as you have 20% equity or higher and are very good at paying it back which base on current conditions not everybody is OK with. This is NOT the way to do it. Buy a lesser car do some work, then sell it and move up the chain. Been doing it for years. The 2nd does work if you need additional tax write offs but it is not as beneficial as some think. Financing a classic is NOT the way to go about things.
hey naes welcome to the hamb. first if you need to peddle your bus you can get a great car or old truck for what yor bus is worth. billy
Buy one you can afford, fix it a little at a time, drive late model beater until it dies, replace with same as needed until old car is ready to roll -
If you have good credit, just get a personal loan. You can find a decent 49-52 Chevy for a decent amount.
i took a personal loan out to buy a '65 GTO project. Then 2 months later i bought a house......then got married........now i have a newborn........AND still am paying on the car. I dont have the cash to drop on it, nor want to work on it now, and i having a hard time selling it for what i payed. I refuse to lose money on a '65 goat, so im gonna sit on it for as long as i have to. I'de listen to the guys, save up, and get something you can afford to drive. This way your not stuck with a payment.
FWIW last time I checked Cap. One blank check no longer would work for old cars, they changed their policy when I looked 6 months or a year ago. Heloc is your best way if you can swing it. You could try and find someone that'll hold the note for you, but good luck. You could pay way outrageous prices and possibly finance at one of those classic car dealers, either a big one or a note lot. Or you could do what I'm doing and driving a POS Isuzu Rodeo('92) as a daily while I get my '51 up to snuff. And as someone mentioned earlier, mines starting to take a crap so I'm looking for a less sucky Isuzu to take it's place I've got my eye on one that's $500!
Not sure how much this will help. My brother, whose credit score is lower than whale crap on the bottom of the ocean, managed to get a loan on a 40's Plymouth streetrod at a local bank. He has a good income now, but credit was not so good in the past. I've also got a couple of friends who've done the same thing, one as recently as January. If you have a decent job and have proven to be a good credit risk in the recent past, and have at least a quarter down, it seems that some local small banks and even local credit unions will take a chance on you even when the big guys will snub their noses at you. Whatever you do, if you want it to be a daily driver, have a good mechanic check out ALL the mechanicals on it, including WHAT it has or is supposed to have. AND, if they say the drivetrain is a certain something, make them put it in writing. My brothers Plymouth supposedly had a 340 mopar. It was a doctored high mileage 1970's 318 smogger engine (with matching tranny) that threw a rod a couple of weeks after he bought it. 13k for a 4 door sedan street rod that needs a paintjob, an engine, a tranny, a heater, and an interior redo would not hurt. My brothers investment has ballooned to over 17K so far (and it still doesn't run). Last year one of the cars I bought was a first year Firebird that was supposed to need a complete restoration. I bought it expecting that. The seller also tossed in a 68, that had been rolled, for parts. Less than a week after I bought it, I was offered twice what I paid. Not long after that I found out that it runs, all the mechanicals work just fine, except for a leaking front seal on the tranny and the engine turned out not to be original, but a 68 Ram Air II 400 (which runs just fine after I wired the distributor right) which someone else had stuck in it. My total investment so far is $2500 for the cars and about $800 in parts, most of which are not necessary (headers, exhaust system, subframe connectors, traction bars, cam kit, etc) and I expect to put out less than $1k for replacement or repair of body panels to fix some rust and dings. If I put a total of $5k into it, I'll have a daily driver car worth $10k, maybe more. If it was me, I'd say build one. When you buy one done, you really have no idea what you're getting. You could get a diamond in the rough or a lump of coal. There are many more lumps of coal, than diamonds.
from what i understand, almost all banks have put a hold on issuing personal non-secured loans. they're gonna hafta start again at some point to get the credit market rolling, but for now there's no way they're gonna give a kid with a new job thousands of dollars to buy an old car. most banks have a 20 year cut off. a used car is a used car regardless of age. you'll wind up spending money on it no matter what. thats the beauty of new cars... warranty.
Although some hambers use their rides as daily drivers I make a distinction between transportation and hobby. NEVER EVER take a loan out for a hobby car. Also, don't be 100% convinced that your job won't go away at some point and for some period of time you have to carry a loan with no gig to sustain it. Re-read the previous post about the 65 GTO about 10 times.
Don't forget that old cars will definitely nickel and dime you, not to mention occasionally leave you stranded on the side of the road. Much of this forum is devoted to finding parts and fixing these toys. Finance necessities (because they're necessary) and pay cash for toys. You need a dependable car (with a warrantee) to get to and from that good paying job you just got. There are incredible deals on new cars with 1.9% and 0% financing available to take advantage of. (no, I don't sell cars, LOL). Keep the car through the warrantee period, then either run it into the ground or trade it in and start over again. That's may be HAMB heresy, but it's real life. On a used car, if you're lucky, a $7,500 loan at 10% for 3 years will be $242/month and $1,212 in interest. Remember the bumpersticker: "Don't laugh, it's paid for".
Try going to the ebay site or Collector Car Trader, look under financing. Lots of rules though, like getting a photo copy of the title, reg and sellers license, plus some of this stuff has to be noterized. I went to the site on Collector Car Trader to check it out. Been receiving offers ever since.
I did what you are looking to do about 10 years ago when I was 21. DONT DO IT!!! especially not for a daily. I cant remember the name of the company I used but there are only two in the U.S. that do it and they do not finance 100% I have a prefect credit score and was only able to finance 75% of it. I got tired of the car long before I paid it off and also had to put alot of money into it to keep it going since it was my daily driver. I bought the car from a classic car dealer in wheeling Illinois. It was part of a Chevy dealership. Keep in mind you will have to have full coverage on the car which will also run you some bucks.
Eloan, at least 2 years ago, no problems, were going to give me twice what I wanted, no need for an appraisal for the amount I was approved for.
Aside from the financial arrangemnts, any old car does take maintance and lots of it! I love the old cars as daily drivers but the truth is you had better get good with a weekly looksie or buy good shoes! The art of driving an old car is listen to the old gal and get in sync with her so you can interpet the groans and rattles, to know the normal from the abnormal. Another backup car takes the pressure off of the situation. Either a scooter or beater or layred clothing and again, good shoes, good luck.
I'd say it's a bad idea simply because you'll get sick of driving a '49-52 Chevy as an "everyday car". I use a '62 as a daily driver for 50% of the year and I'm honestly rather tired of it after 4 years. That's even despite my love of the X-frame cars. The drive-an-old-car-to-work "fun factor" wears off after a couple of years.
I used E-Loan to buy three vehicles. A 63 Chevy II, a 66 C-10 and a 70 C-10 at about 7% interest. I think the only requirement they had for buying an older vehicle was a credit score of at least 700. If your score was lower than that, the car couldn't be more than 10 yrs old. Daily driver duties were split between the 63 and 66 for about 3.5 yrs. I've since sold the '66 and '70, and can't use the '63 as a daily anymore b/c I now have classic car insurance on it. I just recently bought a 'new' vehicle ('88 chevy 1500), but I miss driving the old cars everyday. If I could finance another old car, I'd probably do it again... things have changed over the last couple of years and it's much harder to get loans on old cars. It might be dumb, but it's a whole lot easier convincing the wife that we can afford a $150 payment than convincing her that we should take $5k out of the savings account.
Once upon a time I also found myself in a new job making more money, my daily beater was long in the tooth and I told myself I am finally going to own a cool car. So I went out and bought a 1953 ford 2 door victoria. Black and white top, dummy spots, lakes pipes, fender skirts, shiny paint, flathead V8, automatic, dual exhaust. Older restoration, ready to run. I bought it off a lot, so they financed some of it. I kept the beater for a few months just so I could shake out the Ford. Yea, it needed repairs and left me stranded a few times, but I sure had fun. I did cringe driving it in the rain and snow and eventually retired it to the garage and bought another beater for back & forth to work. Back to your original question for creative financing, several of my beater cars ($5000 or less) we just took a cash advance on the credit card, you know zero percent for the first 6 months and paid them off before the interest kicked in. Life is short, the memories from daily driving a classic is worth all the lost dollars as in the 65 GTO example.
Some of the specialty car insurers were financing the classic cars, I think I remember hearing that Hagerty and Leland were. Don't know if they still are, but if you use them you may get a good rate on both financing and insurance through one of them. Rates for "old" cars are higher than new or "used" car rates and down payments may be larger as well.
If you use a classic car insurance company to finance the car, I'm guessing they'd expect you to insure it as a classic car, which would mean no daily driving. When E-loan was giving loans on old cars, they didn't require any down payment. They also didn't need to appraise the car. They just mailed you a blank check, that said 'not good for over $XXXX.' XXXX = whatever amount you applied for. If you needed the check fast, you could have it the day after you applied for the loan.
Save and pay CASH. Its no fun to make payments on a car {or anything that needs work} when you cant use it. Do what ever you need to save for it. The best deal is one paid for in CASH. Get a part time job. Deliver pizzas,oil change place or best yet a scrap or junk yard. The deals will come to YOU if you have CASH. Any job driving around will take you to the places the neat stuff is hiding. PAY CASH When your done its yours. Nobody can take the feeling from you.
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