Would you finance a 'fun' car purchase?

Yup.  Finance away.  

Realistically I'd guess most "fun" cars that GRM are after have either already ridden down their depreciation curve and/or have bottomed and may even potentially hold or appreciate slightly vs. every joe blow appliance buyer who spends on average almost $37K on a new car in this country, and then drives it into the ground and sells it or trades it in for substantially less.  

In addition, current financing rates are silly cheap.  If it's a street car with occasional track time, you can buy trackday insurance to protect your asset.  

All this said, there's plenty of dirt cheap silly fun cars to throw cash at instead, and a full blown track car would be silly to finance, but I'd wager there's a whole lot of "real" race teams who operate on leverage, a prayer, and a whole lot of hustle... they're just not getting used car loans directly.  ;-p 

No. 

But I wouldn't finance any car so I'm probably not the person to ask.

Being able to pay cash has always made the fun car more fun. 
 

Also agreed more expensive doesn't = more fun. Unless your idea of fun is talking to random strangers every time you get out of your car. 

Would, have, would again. Even if you have the cash for it, if you can get a loan for under 5% (which is pretty easy to do these days) that money is better off sitting in an investment account. Financing a private party used car purchase can be a pretty big pain, that's about the only caveat. If it's a car that you care about and is expensive enough that you're even considering financing it, it should be getting full coverage insurance anyway, so that's not really a factor. And track insurance is a thing that exists and is pretty dumb to not get for a car worth over ~$10k, whether you own it outright or not. My cayman was only ~50% financed so the payment is pretty low, but I can't ever remember a moment when I've thought "I'd like this car more if I didn't have to pay for it." Maybe it would cross my mind every now and then if the payment was doubled, but I still wouldn't have any regrets.

No. If it's not cash, it's not coming home.

I wouldn't finance a car I intend to run at the track, but I would finance a fun street car.

Maybe.  It depends on the price.

I'm poor. I have to finance everything more than a few hundred dollars. But I also have a plan on how to get there if I can't buy outright. Just like my build thread, it's all paid for so far. Of course I'm using what I have to get something I always wanted. 
I still want a bbf powered half ton pickup... a decent half ton is 3k-8k, depending on year.

If the interest rate is high, then it's a straight 'no' across the board.  However, if the interest rate is low, it's really just dependent on your personal financial priorities. If you prefer the peace of mind that comes from being debt free, then you do not want to finance it. If you prefer the peace of mind that comes from investment returns, then you do want to finance it. Neither is 'wrong', but either way also assumes one can genuinely afford said 'fun' car.

In a roundabout way I did. We bought a 2018 Explorer Platinum in February 2018. 60 months at 0%. I sold our other two cars and used the cash to buy two vehicles that I thought would be more fun.  A 2011 GTI to commute and play in and a 2007 F-150 4x4 to use for hardware store and camping trips. Both are more fun for my uses than the cars they replaced. I almost sold stock and paid cash for the Explorer but I decided to leave the stock alone. In that time the stock has more than doubled, covering the cost of the Explorer and then some.

I wouldn't buy a car for fun if I 'had' to finance it, but rates are so low now that it may make sense for an opportunity purchase just to keep the semi-liquid 'cash assets' where they are. Being frugal (cheap), I wouldn't finance beyond what I could choose to pay off within a week or so.

In 1997 I bought a top 5 RunOffs Showroom Stock Miata and financed it.  As it was showroom stock I daily drove it as well. The buyer played along by using his connection to get an inspection for my bank (out of state purchase), he took it to the Mazda dealer he was friends with.

So many things could have gone wrong but didn't.................the motor spun a bearing after about six months and I slapped a use lower end in it that was still going 60,000 miles later.

My answer is no. Not just because it could get damaged or destroyed but also because we have gotten to the point where we refuse to finance any vehicle. If we can't pay cash we don't need it. 

Never take out a loan on a depreciating asset.

Full stop.

ShawnG said:

Never take out a loan on a depreciating asset.

Full stop.

I used to feel that way, but as my emergency fund turned into excess cash I ended up going the opposite route and using low interest loans.  The way I've come to see it is that if I have the money to pay it off whenever it can be worth paying a small convenience fee to the bank in the form of interest to keep my cash reserves up.

bobzilla said:

My answer is no. Not just because it could get damaged or destroyed but also because we have gotten to the point where we refuse to finance any vehicle. If we can't pay cash we don't need it. 

The ability to pay cash and financing are not mutually exclusive

ShawnG said:

Never take out a loan on a depreciating asset.

Full stop.

Not all cars depreciate. 

ShawnG said:

Never take out a loan on a depreciating asset.

Full stop.

Why would I liquidate an investment account making around 10% returns to avoid paying 4% interest on an auto loan? That's just a double loss, you get a depreciating asset and lose a profit source. "Never finance a depreciating asset you can't afford to buy outright" might be a better statement. I still disagree to some extent, but it at least has sone decent logic to it.

We've financed the last few cars. Last four? Hard to remember. Our general rule is that we finance cars if we can easily pay less than 2.5%. Interest rates have been low enough for a while that meeting that requirement is easy. Keeps our cash as cash and since it's our only debt it keeps our credit active. 

I've financed daily's and motorbikes. Looking forward to paying off the Mazda (her daily) in the next ten months or so. Then no more car loans until she needs something newer (hopefully far far in the future) and then hopefully I'm in a better financial situation and don't need to finance. And hopefully by then I can find a sweet blue transit with low miles and that panoramic sunroof. Not that I've thought about it a lot.

Fun car? Nah. I'm blessed to have cheap taste, so my "fun" cars tend to be well under 4 digits. Currently it's a challenge car, and when that's done I'll move on to my $600 VW. 

I really don’t like debt. I think of it like one form of modern slavery. 

Doing things I don’t want to do/am morally opposed to, so I can pay my debts is what I want to move away from, not towards.

I like old stuff and can't bring myself to finance any of it. My wife's daily was financed purely because of the interest rate they offered. We had cash ready but when he did the loan paperwork it made no sense to hurt the cash reserves that badly. 
 

my spinal issues the last 2 years have made my already debt adverse self even more afraid of it so our rule is we have to be able to afford to pay it off if the need arises. 

Hard no.

I will finance a repsonsible car that is fun.

But never owe money on something that you will break.

Depends on the car.  Loans through lightstream or penfed are very lenient with what you can purchase and have low interest rates.

If you buy a car that will not really depreciate you should be looking at the delta between the loan rate and what your money is making for you invested elsewhere.

When I bought my mcoupe (not really depreciating)  I decided to finance it because the 3.75% interest on my loan was far less than my money would make for me flipping cars or golf carts.  If I tied it up in a car that I was not selling I have less money to make money with.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Hard no.

 

I will finance a repsonsible car that is fun.

 

But never owe money on something that you will break.

Going to play devlis advocate for a second because I think people are missing part of this.

What is the difference between owing $10k on a broken car, (but its sitting in your investment account) vs. having already paid $10k for a broken car?

OP question:  Would you finance a fun car purchase?

It seems what most people are answering is:  Would you purchase a car you couldn't afford to pay cash for?