That´s exactly why I started this argument in the first place. Anyone should be able to find what they´re looking for either you enter with commercial name or with the code. We have space for both, so I never saw that as a problem.




No, we´re not talking about the same thing really. I like to have both ways easily searchable, nzcarnerd wants to delete or at least hide away the official designations used originally. In one of his later posts we could also learn that he wishes to erase Dodge Brothers, the brandname used by the founders, from history. It should just be Dodge, plain and simple.

The way many of these cars are listed today on this site is the work of nzcarnerd after his personal preferences. Before that many were entered with other designations, it can be easily seen when looking through earlier posts how they were entered over the years. It was partly inconsistent and could have been better, but many were actually right before.


The Mercedes example above is good for showing different perspectives in looking at vehicles, from the commercial side or the enginering side. And as Dynamike pointed out, how we saw them when new versus how they´re often are referred to in retrospect.

The problem with Mercedes denominations are that they are based on enginesize, and without reading the badge we can seldom be sure exactly which one it is. This can be solved by doing an educated guess on which one it might be, or by entering the W-code only, and leave the other field empty.

But the code is no replacement for the proper designation.

In the case with these old cars it´s different. We can often pinpoint the exact denomination used, and the codes for chassis and or bodies. There´s no need to chose between them. The only problem is that we have more codes than we have fields to enter them in. But that is besides the point.

The use of chassiscodes or other codes as primary information comes largely from carclubs, they use it for practical reasons. To keep things apart. And from that perspective it´s perfectly alright, and also necessary.
There are lots and lots of designations that have survived several generations of cars, of course the codes are vital to use here.

An example can be the german Ford Taunus, there´s nothing in common between the first 1939 model and the last one from 1982, but the name. And the generations between came in different sizes aimed for different parts of the market. It´s only natural that enthusiasts for the 1961-64 Taunus 17M lift the code P3 to be a vital information. The car itself sold as Taunus 17M, like the P2 before it and the following P5. Most of the owners back then would have been clueless if you talked about Taunus P3.

Taunus is a "proper" modelname. so it´s no debate if it should be allowed to be called Taunus. But we have a variety of designations used over the years that are in common between manufacturers.

It might be enginesize: Fiat 1100, Hansa 1100, Fiat 1500, Simca 1500, VW 1500, BMW 1500, Opel 1500 etc.

It might be number of cylinders: Dodge Six, Dodge Eight, La Salle Eight, Lincoln Twelve, Cadillac Sixteen, Ford V-8, Cadillac V-8, Lincoln V-8 etc.

It might be taxation: Citroên 2CV, Renault 4CV, Chenard & Walcker 9CV, Renault 9CV, Talbot 11 CV, Simca-Fiat 11 CV, Rosengart 11CV etc.

More taxation: Jowett 7 HP, Bean 12 HP, Rover 12 HP, Lanchester 14 HP, Lea-Francis 14 HP, Rover 14 HP, Vauxhall 14 HP etc.

It might be trimlevel: Buick Special De Luxe, Chevrolet Special De Luxe, Plymouth Special De Luxe, Chevrolet De Luxe, De Soto De Luxe, Dodge De Luxe, Ford De Luxe, Plymouth De Luxe, Volkswagen De Luxe etc.

It might be bodystyles: Audi Coupé, Dodge Coupe, Fiat Coupé, Maserati Coupé, Hyundai Coupé, Mercury Coupe, Wartburg Coupé, Dodge Sedan, Plymouth Sedan, Lincoln Sedan, Daimler Limousine, Volkswagen Limousine, Wartburg Limousine etc.

All of these might be questioned as "proper" modelnames, but they were used in that sense. What is the difference between the first five groups and the last? I can´t see any, they are all just "this" or just "that", and they were all common over the years.

Today it´s rather easy to find original documents, like sales material, workshops manuals and spareparts lists to see how it was back then. It´s also easy to find information from various sources on the net highlighting one part or another, or mixing it all up beyond rekognition.
There´s also today a large amount of articles in magazines, and books over marques and models. The quality in them varies from excellent research and analysis to complete disaster. The contents in them also leaks over to the internet. It´s not an easy task to find the good information in that djungle, but starting with the original documents often reduce the questionmarks considerably.

The Lincoln and Continental issue you mention above is a good example of how a common misconception over time becomes some kind of truth. Ford made Lincoln Continental, and also had a series of cars with the make Continental.
This is of course confusing and many contemporary articles label them all as Lincolns. This has haunted them over the years, but still, in Fords marketing they are strictly kept apart and in their workshop manuals there´s a difference made. Also Fords VIN-decoder lists Continental as a separate make.
The same goes for Imperial, both a model under Chrysler and Chrysler Corporations top of the line make. In both cases many people simply refuse to acknowledge the difference.

The Ford Model T is an example of when both these ways of labeling cars can be correct. 1909-14 Ford promoted Model T as the name of the cars, this was common in the early years of automotive history. But from 1915-1927 this designation dissappears, and they begin to label them only by the bodystyles which at this point began to be common practice amongst the competion.
All of them are of course still Model T´s, the difference is that Model T becomes an internal designation and ceases to be promoted.

Moving the Model T designation to the chassisfield and entering the commercially used bodystyles as names for 1915-27 cars would actually be both correct and help to sort the different models out. It takes just a simple click on Model T in the chassisfield of one car and ALL of them will come up, sorted by bodystyle and year. As it is now the large part of them are just Model T and finding specific models proves to be more difficult since this information is either hidden as extra info, or not added at all.

I changed a few Model T´s accordingly so you can see the difference:
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicles_make-Ford_model-Model+T.html

And some changes also to the Lincolns:
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicles_make-Lincoln_model-Model+L.html

It´s easier to overview on the Lincoln example since there less cars in total, so if we enter [Model L] in the chassisfield and move the bodystyles as modelnames they will be automatically sorted and very easy to overview. If we keep them with Model L as modelname, finding the different styles for comparison is more complicated.

Making a general change for these cars wouldn´t be too difficult in itself, If I´m not mistaken i think Antp could make the swap for the whole lot. After that we can look over the details for consistency.