Ray, the car can be sold and the debt resolved. My widowed DIL is hoping to buy a $1500. van. Quit crying a river.
Unless as I said the car is financed. I have helped folks that are in a bad place financially and they almost invariably financed the car and its underwater. So assuming someone owns a valuable car doesn’t mean they have equity or that they purchased it when on state aide.
For this to be actionable information we need to know if they had equity in the vehicle.