Thank you for all the info allodial.
Definitely something to think about, especially as the economy collapses further. Traveling may become more difficult in the future.
Luckily it is still relatively easy and borderline affordable to keep DL, tags and insurance around here, on our old clunkers anyways. They were all bought with cash long ago; we have no credit rating, never having bought anything on credit.
Is it necessary to have some family trust structure in place in order to go this route with the DOT # for the cars?