Used/Older Model Vehicles, Beaters, Clunkers, and Junkers Options

[Digital Heroin]

In making a character for a recent game, I came upon a quandry. I'mmaking a private dick, so he needs wheels, but all the cars in the books are presumed to be new. I don't really see a desperate, live job to job PI having a brand new car, in fact the character's starting with the clothes on his back, an apartment with overdue rent, and the car... that's it. So taking 90k resources just for that, well it's overkill.

My proposed solution, reflect an older model, or beat the crap out of car by downgrading a statistic or two (reflecting wear) and reducing the cost by 1/2 the appropriate Improvement Cost a la Rigger 3.

Example: Jack Marshall's Ford Americar's seen better days. Hell, those better days were a good four years ago. The body's beat up, the muffler's shot, and she backfires. To represent the rattle, the clatter, and the backfiring, we raise the car's Signature by 1 point. The cost of a Signature Improvement is Rating to the 4th Power * 200 design points (1*1*1*1)*200 = 200. Since the markup for a Sedan is 1.0, and design points are multiplied by 100 to represent cost, a Signature improvement of 1 point would cost 20,000. Half of that is 10,000. Thus a beat up old backfiring muffler shot Ford Americar would cost only 10,000.

Thoughts, questions, comments... death threats?