In the USA, this could be purchased with a bill of sale only and then registered in one of several States that do not issue Titles to vehicles of this vintage. At that point it could be resold to another person in another State, using the active Registration to generate a new clean Title.
This might only be a problem if a future owner was in New York state, but I would wager that the Long Island owner of this never titled it in the first place. I know many many microcars that are owned but not driven, and they all have "titles" from whoever sold the car at some point in the past. That Title is just passed on from one person to the next, many vintage microcars just change hand with cash and a handshake.