At $10K, I think I would go for it if the payments are reasonable and I were still working pretty regularly. Finance through a credit union so you are not holding liability on its value and you would be carrying full coverage insurance anyway, which puts your payments around maybe $300/month on a relatively short term loan.
My advice, have no more than $3500 value equity in a vehicle due to the fact that is the max that insurance companies are comfortable paying an individual if it gets totaled out, and given that car loans are lower interest than the profit that you can make with actively investing your money in something profitable elsewhere, it is smart to keep the equity value in a depreciating asset relatively low. Remember, SHTF, nobody is going to be giving a crap about reposessing vehicles.
On the other hand, carrying full insurance on low value vehicles eats you up, so if you have rigs that are worth $1500 to $2500, then you might as well go liability only unless maybe it is a work truck which you keep $10K worth of tools in.
The other thing about fully insuring a higher value bugout vehicle is that the contents get some level of insurance too. It sucks if the shit is not on the fan and your $3500 NVGs and $3000 weapons bag got ripped off along with your truck, and you know how that works even if the truck got recovered by the police with the stuff still in it. Your bags of stuff will not survive the stay in the tow yard.
I generally own more than one vehicle, with not all of them running at any given time. My personal opinion is that a smallish 4X4 SUV should be a component in every prepper/survivalist/militia guy's motor stable. Mine right now, not sure if I would trust it on a long trip (it is old and has some issues but I got it cheap and am putting more money into it than I will get back out of it, so I am getting use out of it). You solve that cargo capacity problem with a trailer hitch and beefed up roof rack.
The trailer hitch gives you three options (four if a larger rig).
1. Towing a trailer. Look through Youtube at "bugout trailers" but also just think through the general utility of having a utility trailer. My small cheap 4X4 SUV cannot tow the camper, but can tow the motorcycle trailer and the multipurpose trailer. A weekend project with one of those Harbor Freight trailer frame kits will net you a mobile cargo box which gives your rig equal hauling capacity to a full size pickup.
2. Hitch haulers AKA wheeless trailers. These are rack like devices that attack to a trailer hitch but don't have their own wheels. They range from a basic platform to a pretty complex and involved big rack system. Prices from $50 on up. The downside is they usually prevent you from opening the lift gate/tailgate when installed. Jeep guys use these a lot on trails and just access their stuff through the back window, and then put cargo boxes on the hitch hauler rack. Sometimes they get modified to carry another spare tire, bikes, motorcycles, even barbeque grills. Remember, the weight capacity is limited by the tongue weight capacity on your rig.
3. Bike rack (similar to the hitch hauler but less involved. Bikes take up a lot of interior space in a bugout vehicle, even if you went high end and have Montague folding paratrooper bikes which are the schnizzit of the tacticool crowd. Lacking Montague bikes then you want an external bike rack. Lots of these are made to attack to a trailer hitch.
4. (larger rigs or rigs with bigger motors) Towing another vehicle. Your bugout situation can involve getting someplace, then operating from there as economically as possible. That can mean the 8MPG 4x4 big rig machomobile which is the main point of your base camp may not be the best runabout for heading to town and around the national park for fetching firewood from a few miles away economically. A 30-40 MPG little hatchback econo-car on the other hand, like a Geo Metro with the rear seats folded down or removed, that's a good little hauler/utility car as long as you keep it on pavement and less challenging dirt roads. Not a stupid bugout idea to tow one of those along as a runabout.
If I am seriously bugging out, as in orderly evacuation style, then everything that is roadworthy rolls out in convoy, but not everything needs to be a 4X4 unless you are heading for the serious back hills and are using low quality roads as your filtering factor to keep the washed masses away from your main bugout location.
