Personal loans are not available for good rates, plus I'm a teacher and they wouldn't give me 17K even with my credit score.

 

Sorry I never got back back in a timely manner. What ended up happening was that I called at least a dozen credit unions and banks. Banks, right off the bat, won't fiance cars over ten years old. The one CU that would work with me wanted to inspect the car first, bring the title, etc and I would have to jump through a bunch of hoops. I called some of the specialty banks, like Haggerty, and the car wasn't worth enough. I did apply to PenFed and thought it was a sure thing, and despite my credit score, I was shocked to find out I was denied. I suspect that its because I'm a teacher in AZ and only make $45K. I spent an ungodly amount of time trying to get this to work and got genuinely pissed. I ended up having to go through a dealer, who have pull with the credit unions when they want to sell a car. They found some unknown credit union two states away who would do it, and got an $20,000 07 Silverstone at 3.5%. Not a tan interior car like I wanted, but it got me into a S2000. All in all, it was a huge PITA.

 

PITA notwithstanding, you own an S. Congratulations. Go drive it. That's why Honda built this driving machine.

 

You got a great interest rate. I wouldn’t expect too much better on a used vehicle. Even if it were 1% lower you’re not talking much difference on $20k.

 

When I purchased my 2001 S2000 with 14k miles two years ago my credit score was at least 815. The bank went off the NADA value and said the car was only worth about $12k and because of my credit they gave me a bit more. I had to pull the rest as cash for the sale and had no problem doing that after watching the prices for a time. And let's just say it was a lot more than $12k to buy it. These cars are way undervalued by NADA, who sees them as nothing more than an old Pontiac Grand Am or something. Watch out for insurance too, smash it and they will give you a lot less than it's worth. I am seriously looking at Hagerty and their declare a value insurance.
And if you got an unmolested S2K with under 20K miles and will take $12K I will fly out and get it!!

 

I use Hagerty as they have what is called a guaranteed value policy. In this case the policy is aptly named. I originally had my S2000 insured with State Farm as we have everything else possible insured with them and have always been satisfied with they way they've treated us when we've needed them. However, in the case of the S2000 the best that State Farm could offer was a stated value policy. In the case of a stated value policy you can set the insurance for the car based on a stated value but unlike Hagerty's guaranteed value, which pays out the full guaranteed amount n the case of a catastrophic loss, there is no such guarantee when it comes to State Farm's stated value policy. Although in the case of a car like the S2000 the stated value policy does help you obtain a better payout than their standard policy. But in this case you still might need to jump through quite a few hoops with State Farm to get what the car is really worth or close to it. Finally, Hagerty was a breeze to deal with. State Farm on the other hand, despite my 3+ decades with them, proved to be a bit of a pain just trying to get a stated value policy established. They wanted me to take the car to a local specialty appraiser before they would even talk to me about such a policy and even then I'm doubtful that they would have agreed to insure the car for the amount that I wanted. (I am familiar with State Farm's stated value policy as I had one on a 1967 Camaro that I owned back in the 1980's.)

Oddly, it was through talking to the specialty appraisers (each of whom was associated with a specialty car dealer focused on collectible/rare/exotic cars) that State Farm had recommended that caused me to change my mind. While talking with them I decided to ask appraiser who they recommended for insuring a car like the S2000 based on their experiences — which insurer out there would likely do best by me based on what they had seen. Each one of them without pause quickly said Hagerty. So I contacted Hagerty and the rest was history. My next call to State Farm was to let them know that I was not going to be renewing my policy for the S2000. I don't hold this against State Farm at a personal level. They just aren't set up to deal with cars like the S2000 the way that a specialty insurer like Hagerty is (and there are others out there besides Hagerty). State Farm still insures every thing else that we own. But when it comes to the S2000 I now have much better coverage with Hagerty at a lower cost than I was paying with State Farm, and that was before I even managed to put together a stated value policy which would have cost me even more money.

 

Tell him to borrow it from a family member. You know what they call loans made to family members? Gifts.

Sorry. I guess you were hoping for a serious solution.

 

I kinda like both of those cars in your avatar...

 

Thanks! I appreciate the kind remark.