I literally get cars from junkyards with no paperwork. Example: a wrecked, rare 76 Jaguar xj6C coupe with no paperwork, plates, keys. You have to trailer it to the police station for verification, show bill of sale etc etc, then go through months of DMV forms and fees which typically require a professional who does this bureaucracy, otherwise you will spend tens of hours waiting to go to a DMV window to be given the next hurdles to jump over. Transferring titles from purchased out of state cars is painful too. The smog issues are relatively straight forward in comparison.