Dangermouse
07-11-2013, 12:28 PM
Warning – Dry Content Ahead! Proceed with Caution!
I was away on a business trip and had a couple of nights to kill, so I did a little review of VIN-List data. And let me first say that this is in no way a critique of the work Shannon and the guys at txdmc.org do in maintaining this Registry/Chronology.
However, perhaps the results can be extrapolated to the US as a whole, in terms of active cars?
Like many of us, I am sure, I am interested in the number of cars in my city/state, and like many, I have never seen one in the wild (or very few – I actually saw one, one night). When I got my car in 2008, I checked out the VIN-List and saw that there were well over 100 cars in the state and over 50 in Atlanta. “Really”, I thought, “that seems a lot”. However, I am well aware that this list is only as good as the information that the txdmc.org guys get and that some info is from the 1980s presumably.
So, with that recent free Autocheck hack, I took the time to run Autocheck reports on every car that was listed in the state (that I didn’t know or had seen – those I assumed had active Autocheck reports).
The state of Georgia seems to report Titles, Annual Registrations and Emission Test records (only for those cars in the Metro Atlanta area under 25 years old). State records in GA seem to have been computerized in 1997 as I did not find any dates before that, even for cars that have been active for 30 years. (Actually to be correct, some records have an initial title date prior to 1997, say 1986, and then no records until 1997 and then it is constant after that. I surmise that during the computerization in 1997, the clerk entered the original GA title date and then ignored all intermediary information until 1997).
As a starting point I had a list of 130 cars listed as being in the state, with 69 being in the Metro Atlanta area. I arranged the results into 3 groups
1. 24 cars (18%) had reports that showed them as no longer being in GA. Some had sufficient detail to show that they had once been in GA and then moved. Others had no reference to GA at all probably meaning that they left the state prior to 1997.
2. 32 cars (25%) did not have a report at all. Based on reviewing the dates included in the active cars, it implies that these cars have not been registered, in GA or any other state, since 1997. They may or may not still exist. They may be barn-finds of the future. They may be in private collections or they too may be in a different state, or even country.
3. 74 cars (57%) had reports, some with recent data, others not so recent. I made a somewhat arbitrary determination that any car with activity of 2011 and later was still “active” and those before 2010 were classed as inactive.
Based on that, there are 53 cars considered “active”*, 4 that are “not active” but are known to be in the process of refurbishment, and 20 that are “not active” at all, some with last activity dates as far back as 1998.
*A big asterix for “active” cars though: just because someone taxes their car each year doesn’t mean it is driven. In GA, all cars, whether roadworthy or not, are supposed to be taxed and registered.
Odd Notes:
40% of “active” owners/cars do not seem to participate in our forum here.
There has been a car registered in moderator Sean’s hometown of only 5200 people since 1992, and re-registered every year since 1997, yet he has never seen or heard of it.
So, what does all this mean? Probably nothing!
In summary, of the cars listed on the VIN list as being in GA, only 42% are active (by my probably flawed definition). Is this indictative of the US as a whole? Who knows? If so, it would suggest 2800 active cars in the US based on the txdmc .org data.
Of course there are many holes in this review, chief amongst them is that there are undoubtedly cars in GA that do not appear on the VIN-list or on DMCTalk.
I was away on a business trip and had a couple of nights to kill, so I did a little review of VIN-List data. And let me first say that this is in no way a critique of the work Shannon and the guys at txdmc.org do in maintaining this Registry/Chronology.
However, perhaps the results can be extrapolated to the US as a whole, in terms of active cars?
Like many of us, I am sure, I am interested in the number of cars in my city/state, and like many, I have never seen one in the wild (or very few – I actually saw one, one night). When I got my car in 2008, I checked out the VIN-List and saw that there were well over 100 cars in the state and over 50 in Atlanta. “Really”, I thought, “that seems a lot”. However, I am well aware that this list is only as good as the information that the txdmc.org guys get and that some info is from the 1980s presumably.
So, with that recent free Autocheck hack, I took the time to run Autocheck reports on every car that was listed in the state (that I didn’t know or had seen – those I assumed had active Autocheck reports).
The state of Georgia seems to report Titles, Annual Registrations and Emission Test records (only for those cars in the Metro Atlanta area under 25 years old). State records in GA seem to have been computerized in 1997 as I did not find any dates before that, even for cars that have been active for 30 years. (Actually to be correct, some records have an initial title date prior to 1997, say 1986, and then no records until 1997 and then it is constant after that. I surmise that during the computerization in 1997, the clerk entered the original GA title date and then ignored all intermediary information until 1997).
As a starting point I had a list of 130 cars listed as being in the state, with 69 being in the Metro Atlanta area. I arranged the results into 3 groups
1. 24 cars (18%) had reports that showed them as no longer being in GA. Some had sufficient detail to show that they had once been in GA and then moved. Others had no reference to GA at all probably meaning that they left the state prior to 1997.
2. 32 cars (25%) did not have a report at all. Based on reviewing the dates included in the active cars, it implies that these cars have not been registered, in GA or any other state, since 1997. They may or may not still exist. They may be barn-finds of the future. They may be in private collections or they too may be in a different state, or even country.
3. 74 cars (57%) had reports, some with recent data, others not so recent. I made a somewhat arbitrary determination that any car with activity of 2011 and later was still “active” and those before 2010 were classed as inactive.
Based on that, there are 53 cars considered “active”*, 4 that are “not active” but are known to be in the process of refurbishment, and 20 that are “not active” at all, some with last activity dates as far back as 1998.
*A big asterix for “active” cars though: just because someone taxes their car each year doesn’t mean it is driven. In GA, all cars, whether roadworthy or not, are supposed to be taxed and registered.
Odd Notes:
40% of “active” owners/cars do not seem to participate in our forum here.
There has been a car registered in moderator Sean’s hometown of only 5200 people since 1992, and re-registered every year since 1997, yet he has never seen or heard of it.
So, what does all this mean? Probably nothing!
In summary, of the cars listed on the VIN list as being in GA, only 42% are active (by my probably flawed definition). Is this indictative of the US as a whole? Who knows? If so, it would suggest 2800 active cars in the US based on the txdmc .org data.
Of course there are many holes in this review, chief amongst them is that there are undoubtedly cars in GA that do not appear on the VIN-list or on DMCTalk.