Back when we had cats (I’m assuming your creature is a cat), we had a good plastic coated steel wire framed cage for at least 10 years and may still have it in a shed. I don’t remember getting any of ours into this as being a problem and it was easy enough to close the lid and push the “bolt” back in place. It was much better than the flimsy plasticy things we'd had before. Their reaction to being in there did vary though as did their response to being driven in the car. I would sometimes go with mum to the vets just as a passenger to try to help keep at calm.

I wasn’t involved in this one (a brother helped with that) but mum’s journey here when she moved from N Wales (W coast UK) to Norfolk (E coast) would have been a bit more interesting. I think there would have been 1 (or 2?) cats, 1 dog and at least 4 chickens in her car.