Are verbal agreements binding in Indiana

It's not a question of whether verbal agreements are enforceable, but which verbal agreements are enforceable.  Some agreements are required to be in writing to be enforceable, such as agreements which can't be performed within a year and agreements to buy or sell real property.  Even in these cases, however, there are sometimes ways to circumvent the writing requirement.  I can't tell from your question exactly what you claim the agreement was, so I don't know if it was required to be in writing.  Moreover, my experience is that your friend will claim the agreement was something other than what you claim; he will probably claim that the agreement was that you would take over payments and have the use of the car until he could afford to make payments again.  If your friend's version of the agreement is different from what you claim, the outcome of your claim may depend on who the court believes. Assuming that your contract was of a type which required a writing to be enforceable (and you have no basis to circumvent that requirement), or that the Court doesn't believe that your agreement was that you would take over the full car lease and get the car, you probably will not be able to recover the amounts you paid because you have had the use of the car during the period you made the payments.  If you had spent money to improve the car during that time, you might be able to recover those amounts.