I just bought a 9 year old car from a private party. We paid several hundred over blue book because it was in beautiful shape and has great gas mileage. But the owner couldn't give us the title right away, because he still had a loan on it. He had had it more than 6 years, and the loan was still apparently about a thousand or so over blue book value!!
Instead of smacking him in the face, we quickly bought the car. But I still can't wrap my head around the concept. I haven't had a car loan since 1985. (For you young ones, I wasn't very mustachian back then, but I was paying 15% interest Great incentive to pay off a loan).
The only thing I can figure is he must have borrowed extra money to pay for the other two larger cars sitting in his garage.