I had done the beater/daily driver + summer car for years, while its nice having a car tucked away safe and clean, it also sucks and is kindof embarassing driving a piece of shit for so much of the year. Doubly worse if youre making payments on the car you arent driving. It would be one thing if the ‘beater’ was a nice $5-$8k car, but making the switch from a $20k+ car to a sub $2k beater is the suck.
Nice car full year round is the way to go.