Automapper ProjectTo DefaultIfEmpty Configuration?

Question

AutoMapper v 8.1.1 / EF6

In this example, where Owner.CarId = null, OwnerDto.Car is also null. So if the default behavior is null on a nested property, is there a way to handle the equivalent of .DefaultIfEmpty(new CarDto()) in ProjectTo?

In using a ProjectTo map to convert an optional one-to-one database relationship, if the Owner.CarId is NULL, the CarDto property is null. I thought the default behavior (based on how null collections are handled as I didn't see any mention of how nulls would be evaluated in Nested Mappings) was to return a new CarDto object...and then from there, wasn't sure if the properties of that new CarDto object would be their natural default values (i.e. int = 0) or they'd be null.

Source Classes

public class Car
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Model { get; set; }
}

public class Owner
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public Car Car { get; set; }
    public int? CarId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

Destination Classes

public class CarDto
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Model { get; set; }
}

public class OwnerDto
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public CarDto Car { get; set; }
    public int? CarId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

Mapping Configuration

new MapperConfiguration(settings =>
{
    settings.CreateMap<Owner, OwnerDto>()
    settings.CreateMap<Car, CarDto>();
});