How to find out someone's exact car model without asking
The brand is easy. The generation is where surprise gifts go wrong. Four quiet ways to work it out — from the registration document to the VIN.
Planning a surprise around someone's car means knowing more than "a black Audi". The generation decides the headlights, the grille and the bumper — and a relief, a scale model or a set of floor mats for the wrong one is a gift that misses.
1. The registration document
The fastest route. In the EU format of the registration certificate, field D.1 is the make, D.3 the commercial name and B the date of first registration. With the model and the year you can usually pin the generation down.
2. The badges and the shape
Walk round the car. The model and engine badges sit on the boot lid, and the shape of the headlights and tail lights tells generations apart. A photo of the front and one of the rear is usually enough for anyone who knows cars to identify it.
3. The VIN
The 17-character vehicle identification number is printed at the bottom of the windscreen and on the registration document. On most cars the tenth character encodes the model year, and free online VIN decoders return the make, the model and often the exact version.
4. Their photos and their stories
Car people photograph their cars. A scroll through shared albums — or a casual question about "that car you had before" — is often all you need, especially when the gift is about a car they no longer own.
Facelift or not?
Many generations get a facelift halfway through: new lights, a new grille, sometimes a new bumper. If the year falls close to the change, a photo of the front settles it. When you order a relief from us, we check the generation and facelift with you and show a 3D preview before anything is printed.