When I was 20, my good car died and I need a car. My parents had bought me the good car and I didn’t have the money or credit to but even a $1000 car.
I bought one for $200 cash. It was a piece of crap and looks like $hit but it got me to and from work. The average car payment back then was $200-$350. They thought I was stupid for my cheap car. I thought they were stupid with 3 years of car payments.
Then I found around car for $200. Two years later I had 6 cars and the most expensive was $350. None of them were good for long trips but they got me to work and running around the city. I knew I would always have at least one that was working.
This lasted till I got married at 26 and scaled down to 3 cars, then to 2 cars. After I passed 40 years old, I finally got a decent car as I wanted something more reliable.
People made fun of me, but you never heard me say I couldn’t get to work because of car trouble. And if one of them died, I called the junkyard and they paid me $75 and towed it off (after I took the good battery out and swapped with a dead battery).
These were all the same model, so you could swap the plate and insurance? I did know someone who did that. (I want to say it was some tiny Italian car that came in either a twelve-horse model or a supercharged beast, but they all looked alike.) I do have several cars but to have them all licensed and insured would be ruinous.