I'm looking for a list in tabular or dilimited format that contains
the makes and models of cars and their standard colors when
manufactured.

Dating back to lets say 15 years if possible.  Thank you.

/Lizardnation.

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Request for Question Clarification by darrel-ga on 18 Nov 2002 18:02 PST

All cars everywhere? All cars manufactured in a certain country?

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Clarification of Question by lizardnation-ga on 18 Nov 2002 19:08 PST

Hello Darrel,

All cars from everywhere.

/Lizardnation

Good Day lizardnation,

It sounds like the list you require would be _huge_. To be honest, I
am not sure if you will get a response, unless maybe you can give us
some more info, and help narrow the search.

All makes, and models for the last 15 years would probably come to
tens of thousands of vehicles. If you consider the fact that aside of
the common US, Japanese, and German vehicles there are Polish,
Italian, French, and many many more manufacturers... a request to list
ALL makes and models with the colours they come in becomes what sounds
like an impossible task.

I would suggest helping the Researchers to narrow the search to maybe
a continent  for example: "All vehicles manufactured and released on
the US, Canadian, and Mexican markets..."

My two cents in... Keep the change if you already were aware of the
challenges I brough about.

Regards,
slawek-ga

Hello,

Thank you for your comment.  Allow me to explain my need.

I have an application which monitors and registers all cars visiting a
large tourist project and all cars which visit need to pass security
and need to be classified.  We're not interested in having every
person enter their own opinion of what the vehicle which will result
in a lot of garbage reports coming out at the other end.

The region we're in doesn't have a big enough market to be narrowed in
terms of the makes and models of cars.  This results in an unregulated
market with open standards.  Everything that's anything on a few
wheels is importable if it has a seatbelt and headlights. ;-)

How do I create a fixed list in a tree form for my registration
application to allow the people at all the gates to pick down lists to
define the cars correctly if I don't have a pre-screened and
catagorized list to choose from.

So what I would need, all models of world car makes and their standard
colors as that would be subject to opinion.

I'm over doing it, it's who's in need of this who is and I'm merely in
the middle.

What do you recommend?  Their budget is $50 and I wanted to cut to the
chase and told them they better forget it so I'm waiting for a
confirmation. :-)

Thank you.

/Lizardnation

Hmmm... Tough situation indeed.  Perhaps this will help you wiggle
your way out of the middle: How do you know if the colour of the car
is original? People do sometimes get new paint jobs which are not
always the same colour as the original.

It sounds like the system has too many holes to start with. If I am
understanding you right you understand that this system would be very
much impossible to use as basis for anything nearly accurate.

What about cars with multiple colours?  I realize that both of my
points would probably account for a small percentage of vehicles, but
I think they are an indicator of a larger problem.

To be honest, offhand I can not think of a way to identify vehicles
from a list. No matter what you use, you would get a pretty long list
to choose from. Once you get to a list of that size, how does the
person working sort through the list efficiently to find what they are
looking for?

It sounds to me, and maybe some other researchers can prove me wrong,
like the best way to do this is have a piece of information such as a
licence plate be entered into a data base?  I am not sure if this is
an option?

Regards,
slawek-ga

I hate to comment on questions like this, but in the wake of the
previous discussion, I'm going to make a statement.

This question is answerable, but it would probably take a full week of
research. There are some cars that were available in 15 different
colors, and the list of colors would change every few years, adding
one and taking one off.

Another problems: All those trade names for colors are of no real use
in identifying cars. Can you tell the difference betwen Burnished Gold
and Rich Amber by sight, without looking at a color swatch?

Your clients are asking an awful lot for $50. You could probably get
the data for $500 or so (for that kind of money, somebody would visit
every automaker's site and download a bunch of data), but from a
practical perspective, it wouldn't even be worth $50.

The General

Hello Slawek,

You're right, and license plates might even be possibly cross linkable
to data bought from a Government agency for example which wouldn't
mind sharing Car Make, Model and Color as a no security issue...
Though might be faced with a privacy wall.

I agree with you and think no matter what they do at the gates, the
entry would be inefficient and the color human judgement would be a
nightmare. :-)

Thank you for your valuble answer.

/Lizardnation

Hello Vercingatorix,

I would also agree with you on the quality and applicability of the
information retreived.

This does take me back to wondering what possible use would they have
of the cars going through their site bring them?  They're not in the
car maintenance business nor are they selling accessories. ;-)

Thank you very much, I trully appreciate the comment.

/Lizardnation

lizardnation...

Whether it's security or car specifications your client
wants, why not suggest that the vehicle VIN numbers be
recorded? With the VIN numbers, all the make, model and
color information can be obtained from a database which
is relatively easy to obtain.

Good Day lizardnations,


Your welcome on the answer, and sorry I couldn't bring some better
news. As also pointed out by another individual, with much more money
things may become "possible", but just because it is possible does not
mean it is a good idea to try it.

Regards,
Researcher slawek-ga.