every.autos 13,147
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About the register

Every known fact. Every visible gap.

A practical guide to the scope, evidence, language, and contribution standard behind every.autos

every.autos is a global, openly sourced register of automobile marques and models. It is built for discovery, but it is also an audit trail: dates are qualified, origins keep their meaning, market-specific observations stay clearly scoped, and an empty field stays empty until a source can support it.

The name is a direction, not a completeness claim. No authoritative list defines every car ever made, and the boundary between a nameplate, generation, trim, market alias, prototype, and model year is often disputed. The register makes that uncertainty inspectable instead of smoothing it away.

Model records
13,147
Marques
1,599
Documented or better
10,653
Developing or sparse
2,494
Reading a record

Start with the evidence, then the story

A record combines only the fields its sources actually support. These six cues tell you how much weight to place on what you see.

  1. 01
    Production date

    A closed range means both endpoints are sourced. A trailing dash means production is recorded as continuing or the end date is not yet known. “Unknown” is not an estimate.

  2. 02
    Recorded origin

    Origin describes the model or marque when the evidence supports it. It is not automatically the assembly country, sales market, or current registration market.

  3. 03
    Record depth

    Reference-ready, documented, developing, and research-needed labels summarize which core signals are present. They describe depth, not the importance of the car.

  4. 04
    Evidence links

    The rail on each model page links to the upstream identity record and available articles. Special research entries list their supporting references separately.

  5. 05
    Editorial and extracts

    Original every.autos essays are visually separate from CC BY-SA Wikipedia extracts. Each surface carries its own attribution and sourcing standard.

  6. 06
    Unknown fields

    A “Still needed” note is a research prompt, not an invitation to infer. Add a fact only when a source identifies the same model and the meaning of the field is clear.

Field glossary

Similar words, different facts

Marque
The badge or commercial identity under which a model is presented. It may differ from the legal manufacturer or parent company.
Model / nameplate
A named automobile identity. The current public catalog is a flattened projection and does not always separate generations, trims, or market variants.
Production years
The period in which a model was manufactured, when explicitly supported. Registration observations and model years do not silently extend this range.
Model year
A market designation that can differ from the calendar year of manufacture or sale. It is preserved separately where the source provides it.
Recorded origin
A sourced association with a country. Model origin, marque origin, assembly location, and registry market are distinct scopes.
Production total
The number built when a source gives a total. It is not interchangeable with sales, registrations, allocations, or survivors.
Market observation
A model year, rating, registration, or approval from a named market. It adds local evidence without being treated as a worldwide fact.
Source-backed
The displayed assertion traces to an identified dataset or cited reference. It does not mean every field on the record has been independently corroborated.
Contribute or correct

Bring the source that proves the fact

The fastest useful contribution identifies one exact record, one field, and one source. Official manufacturer archives, homologation records, government datasets, books with page references, and clearly identified contemporary publications are strongest. Unsourced recollection and copied aggregator data are not enough.

Open a GitHub issue ↗ Email a correction

Include these five things

  1. 1The every.autos page URL
  2. 2The field to add or correct
  3. 3The proposed value, with units and scope
  4. 4A direct source URL or full bibliographic citation
  5. 5The passage, table, or page number that supports it

For a new model, also include the marque, canonical model name, identity level, and why it falls inside the passenger-automobile scope.

Common questions

What the register does—and does not—promise

Is this really every car?

No. It is a public register built toward broad global coverage. The coverage ledger reports what is present and what remains unverified without inventing a global completion percentage.

Why is a familiar date or specification missing?

Because the current source set may not state it at the right identity level, or the field has not yet passed validation. A blank is preferable to a plausible but unsupported value.

Why do some marque or model names look unusual?

Upstream datasets sometimes use legal manufacturers, historic entities, transliterations, or market-specific names. Identity reconciliation is ongoing, and questionable entries remain visible only when they pass the current inclusion checks.

Can I reuse the data or text?

Code and curated material use the project license; source-derived records retain their upstream terms. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA, Wikidata is CC0, and US federal datasets are public domain. See licensing and attribution.