Our first two cars were purchased third- or fourth-hand, and bought outright - DH's was an old VL that he bought for $1500 off a neighbour (as junk) and got it running after a couple of years of working on it and throwing money at it. We sold it as a 'project' to another friend when DD1 was due (it still wasn't running great and I wanted a 'family' car), luckily a mate of DH's was looking to sell his VP, we paid $1000 when we got the keys, and gave him another $2200 when we received our baby bonus a couple of months later. It did us very well for about a year, then started stuffing up so we took the plunge and went into debt for a second-hand VZ, thankfully we got a really great deal on it as we bought at the right time - we still have that car and DH paid out the loan when he got his inheritance, so we now own it outright.
DH was looking at getting an industry job a few months ago and the shift work and commute meant we would need a second car, so we got another loan (just over $8k) for an Astra, which is 'my' car for running around town with the kids. We'll be keeping both of these until they die on us Unless we win Lotto or DH gets a trade, and then when we're in the position to, he wants to get a loan for a 4WD so we can go camping in new places