Vehicle lookup: from a VIN or number plate straight to images
Two new add-on endpoints turn a real vehicle into studio images in a single call — VIN or registration number in, decoded data plus matched car images out, with the real paint colour applied.
July 31, 20268 changes
Added
GET /vin/{vin} — decode a 17-character VIN and get the matching car's images in the same response.
GET /plate/{plate} — look up a registration number: vehicle data (including its VIN) plus images of that exact car. Coverage spans the UK, most of Europe, the USA and further markets.
Automatic colour matching on plate lookups — a car registered as white comes back in white. Colours we do not carry fall back to the standard finish, and vehicle.color always states what was used.
Every lookup includes a vehicle block: the matched catalogue car, its stable id, and one signed image URL per view your plan allows.
vehicle.confidence (high / medium / low) tells you how closely the matched car fits the real one.
/api/me now reports the add-ons available to your key under features.vin, features.plate and features.search_allowed.
Improved
Model matching understands manufacturers that split generations into separate model names — a 2017 car now resolves to the generation that actually covers that year.
Invalid VINs and registration numbers are rejected before a lookup is performed, so malformed input is never charged.
Want these images for your inventory?
Tell us which vehicles you list and we will send back real examples from your own stock.
