Getting a loan for a car seems quite natural to me. A car provides service flows over a long period, so why not pay for it over a similarly long period? In the first year or two the car's value is probably below the outstanding loan amount, but beyond that it's likely to rise above it, so you're free to sell and walk away from the arrangement.
Granted, high interest rates might make this a bad deal, but the principle seems sound. I bought my previous car on a 7-year bank loan at 2.5% and didn't regret it.
Given that the car drops nearly 50% value as it leaves the lot, I'm not sure how this every pencils out before maybe 10 years 100k+ miles...Maybe these days given how hot the used car market is (driven by the expensive nature of newer vehicles), but again this is a chicken/egg problem.
Your loan is exceedingly abnormal or from a past time as the average loan % in the US is much higher on that time scale.
It loses (less than) 50% relative to the list price, which is an important reason not to pay the list price. I'd estimate that the last new car I bought lost less than 10% relative to the price I actually paid (although selling via a dealer would probably lose another 10% or so).
On the loan rate: yes, fully agreed, this was an unusually good rate, and that makes the arrangement much more attractive.
Granted, high interest rates might make this a bad deal, but the principle seems sound. I bought my previous car on a 7-year bank loan at 2.5% and didn't regret it.