Just an update on financing OSD purchases for those interested.
If you have good credit, the best choice for OSD financing imo is lightstream.com. While they don't necessarily have the best up-front rates, they will match and beat any other approval at the same terms by 0.10% (their 'rate beat program'), and the whole process is online, fast and easy. But most importantly for OSD deliveries, the loan is unsecured - i.e. they do not need a VIN and do not care about title or lien. (If for some reason your credit is not good enough to get an unsecured loan from lightstream then they will not be a viable option for OSD as they will want the title/lien in short order).
My second choice was penfed.org credit union because of their lenient terms in the context of OSD - they don't need proof of insurance/taxes, allow 150 days to receive the title (and put a lien on it), and have pretty low rates. Also, anyone can become a member unlike many/most credit unions.
If you are eligible to become a member of a CU with better rates I would also apply there even if they require title in standard fashion because you can get lightstream to beat their rate. For example, I see that there are lots of CU's in California with rates as low as 2% fo 36 months. Unfortunately I could not find any that I was eligible for and also had lower rates than penfed.
In the end, I was able to get a 2.89% unsecured loan for 48 months. You can probably get 2.39% or lower for 36 months though rates are moving right now and may be higher. This is the process:
1. became a member of penfed.org online with an account - I had to donate $17 for a military charity because I do not belong to any of the standard eligible employers/groups. took a few minutes and note that it does do a hard pull of credit from Equifax ... but that pull is also used for the actual loan application as well. Also requires a $5 new account deposit which you can take out later on.
2. applied for new car auto loan online at penfed.org. rate of 2.99% for 48 months. (2.49% for 36mos). This took another couple of minutes and I was approved immediately online. grabbed a screen shot of the approval screen.
3. applied online at lightstream.com for same exact terms - amount, 48 months. best advertised rate was 3.69%. Hard pull from Experian and possibly Equifax.
4. 2 hrs later they emailed me to upload a doc, which i did.
5. 2 hrs later lightstream approved an unsecured loan at their advertised best rate of 3.69%.
6. i emailed lightstream customer support with the screenshot of penfed approval at 2.99%.
7. lightstream automatically adjusted my rate to 2.89%
next steps:
8. one e-signs the loan doc online and specifies date you wish to get the funds. (can be same day even!)
9. lightstream transfers funds into your bank account.
10. you can then write a check to your OSD dealer whenever you wish.
hope this helps anyone looking for OSD financing going forward.