How can I define a variable with separate variables for later use?

% simply an example
car = [a b c]
a = 2
car(1)

I want this to return 2 but it cannot even define car because a b and c are undefined. Is there a way to define car using variables like a b and c which can be defined later?

% an attempted fix that did not work
a = 1; b = 1; c = 1;
car = [a b c]
a = 2;
car(1)

this returns 1 because car was defined from the a which was 1 but I want a to be dynamic inside of car such that this would return 2. Help please!

[Optics Wizard]

Not really, but this might help:

You can assign value to car(1), for instance:

car(1) = 2;

So if you want to define 100 empty variables for later use, you can just write:

variables = zeros(1,100);

Then when you want to populate all the variables:

for n = 1:100

variables(n) = rand();

end

Is that sufficient?

[Malcolm Sturgis]

Not exactly what I was looking for but I think this will help me rework my code in a way I don't need my original thingy.

Thanks for the quick response!