Specs appeal! | PH Footnote

We'd all love to know exactly how our car left the factory - a new website can do just that

In an ideal world, we’d all be buying new cars fresh off the configurator, with exactly the colour and trim options we wanted - and a record of everything from day one. Or if it was a secondhand purchase, a diligent original owner would have kept every bit of paperwork associated with their vehicle, including an order form, build sheet or invoice. Or it’s a Ferrari, and there’s a plaque in the boot.

But we know that’s not how cars and optional extras go. The reality is that features get forgotten about, documents are lost and exact specs can be hard to track down. And when there are so many bits which can be added, and the potential for alterations is extensive, that isn’t exactly ideal. The hope is that a selling dealer will provide all the required information, or that a test drive will highlight all that you need to know - but again, that isn’t always the case. A seemingly perfect car might be at the other end of the country, or the ad light on detail. Or you may already have the car, and just be interested in how it left the showroom years ago.

Which is where FactorySpecs comes in, a new tool built by Neil Petrie and one we’ve been having a play with this week. It uses the data also employed by manufacturers and fleets for private individuals, to give a complete overview of your car’s specification. And it’s a whole lot faster than finding an old brochure online to match up with.

At present, FactorySpecs covers 89 manufacturers in Britain from 2005 to now, with 2,906 models, 7,075 model year combinations and 16,498 distinct option packs. As a committed PHer you’ll likely already know something about the extras your car came with, but it might still throw up a surprise or two: our I-Pace, for example, needed £220 spent on it for a home charging cable, and another £100 for mats…

So it’s a fun tool, as well as an educational one. While some extras are plain to see, many are not. With used cars seemingly more expensive than ever right now, everyone wants the best deal possible. When it comes to popular performance cars and their desirable extras (think Golf R, for example), you’ll want to be absolutely sure about the options before committing. Or beat someone else to the fully loaded one before they realise. FactorySpecs is a handy thing for confirming (or disproving) hunches as well: I thought the paint and wheels on my Clio were paid for, but they were included, leaving the only option as the seats. They were £1,600 well spent, at least.

Chatting with Neil revealed a couple of other clever things FactorySpecs can do, most notably recording exactly what was included in Covid-era cars. Back when the world was short of semiconductors (and toilet roll), equipment that should have been included wasn’t always there. Some of that might be clear, some might not be; cars from 2019 and 2021 that are ostensibly identical could have been built differently. FactorySpecs can reveal the difference.

Certainly it seems worth spending an extra tenner when doing background checks on your next car from the classifieds, as much to satisfy curiosity as anything else. A FactorySpecs report also includes MOT history, the standard equipment, the full list of options that could be had (in case you need to seek something else out) and current market valuations. Great for making an offer, perhaps - less so when it shows you overpaid a bit for the Clio nobody likes…

And that’s kind of it. FactorySpecs was new to us until Neil reached out, but it’s left an impression. After all, there’s now a report ready for the next owner of the Trophy. It can be trickier than it should be to get precise spec info, and we know the right seats, sound and stitching matters (even if we sometimes like to pretend that it doesn’t). Now with FactorySpecs, it’s a doddle.

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GreatScott2016

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