Walk up to any auto parts counter, and they’ll ask you the usual question—”year, make, and model?” If you’re driving a 2022 Ford F-150, or a 2007 Honda Civic, you’d expect those to be in the database. But what if you have a 1974 Bricklin SV-1, or a 1990 Vector W8? Well, NAPA will know what you’re talking about, thanks in part to the efforts of one man.
When you buy a car, it comes with some documentation. An owner’s manual, maybe something for the radio, and a service log for the dealership. What it doesn’t come with is a list of part numbers for everything in the vehicle. Instead, databases are maintained by automakers and parts stores alike that correlate Year, Make, and Model with whatever air filter, spark plug, or ball joint you might be looking for.
When parts stores first started putting together their electronic parts databases, priority was given to the most popular models from the largest automakers. This left lots of obscure and low-production automobiles out of the listings. For Matt Sexton, that couldn’t stand. He’s made it his mission to get as many oddball cars into the NAPA database as possible.
Data Obscura
I first ran into Matt in the best of ways—in the comments on The Autopian. I’d written an article on Nissan’s groundbreaking Altra EV and linked to a weird video about its windscreen wipers. He popped in with a rather intriguing comment. “I’m directly responsible for the fact you can walk into any NAPA store in the country and have them look up wiper blades for your Nissan Altra EV,” he said.
Given that we were talking about an obscure 1990s prototype EV built in a run of just 200 vehicles, that sounded insane. I had to know more.
I spoke with Matt, who filled me in on the whole story, which starts a long time ago. “My Dad started [his] NAPA store in 1963,” he tells me. “I would hang around quite a bit, [doing] some odd jobs sometimes.” When it came time to enter the workforce, it only made sense that he join the family business. “In 1985, I officially started on the payroll at 14, so I’ve been around cars and thought cars daily for most of my life,” he says. “It’s a really cool thing when you like cars as much as I do.”
Matt’s career had begun firmly in the analog era. “When I started working the counter in the early 90’s, we were still doing most of our lookups with paper catalogs,” he explains. The pages were filled with cars, both routine and obscure. “Searching in the paper catalogs was sometimes like discovering new worlds, he explains. “Suppose I was looking up wiper blades for a Nissan Altima, there’s a good chance I’d see Nissan Altra EV right below it, and if I didn’t know what it was, I’d look it up.” Flipping through various parts listings proved educational. “I was amazed at some of the listings we had… wipers were always a good one, since most cars have wipers and they’re fairly universal,” he says. “The spark plug books were fascinating too, since most cars use spark plugs and applications were pretty widely covered by either Autolite or especially Champion, who’s been around since the early days of the automobile in the U.S.”
Soon enough, the industry was moving to computer catalogues, and Matt was right there at the ground floor. “When NAPA‘s first electronic cataloging came out, it was a pretty rudimentary thing… it had most of the applications you really needed for most requests we typically received,” he says. “It was coded by number, 1 was Acura and 78 was Yugo, and only went back to 1970 I think.” As the electronic catalogue came to replace the paper books in regular use, it quickly expanded. “Suddenly one day a whole bunch of three-digit Makes appeared, I remember 199 being Aston Martin, 207 being Ferrari and 210 being Lamborghini, for example,” Matt explains. “To a guy like me, having all this access to all this cool new stuff was magical.”
The key thing that stood out to Matt was that the catalogue wasn’t just covering the mainstream products. Updates continued to come through thick and fast, expanding to models both new and old. “Not that I ever expected to use it really, but it showed NAPA was getting serious about including more than just the basics,” he says. “A few years [in], there was this massive dump of new Makes, going back to 1900!” He found out that NAPA had sourced a great deal of information from the Standard Catalog of American Cars, which had extensive historical records. “We now had everything from Essex to Kaiser to Terraplane,” he says with awe. “I would spend a lot of time just poking around in it, seeing what I could find.”
Matt came to learn how that NAPA was populating its electronic catalogue. “The way it works is NAPA‘s suppliers are supposed to review any new make & models added to the vehicle table, and submit any applications they might have for these,” he explains. “So in theory, everything that’s in the paper catalog should have eventually ended up in the computer catalog… but it didn’t.” He found that not everything from the old books was getting ported forward. “As expansive as the computer catalog now was, there were listings in the paper catalogs for Makes and Models that were still not represented in the computer at all.”
As it turned out, Matt found a way he could help rectify this issue. “NAPA used to have a program where if you found an error in an electronically cataloged application, you could submit this discrepancy to the catalog people, and if they could confirm the error, they would fix it and send you a $20 incentive,” he says. “Amazingly, this also applied to listings that were in the paper catalogs but brought up no data on that application in the computer.” He quickly found plenty of corrections to send into head office. “I made a fair amount of money off this program before they killed it… I don’t think I’m solely to blame for that!” he laughs.
It was in the process of submitting these corrections he happened across some missing cars from automakers that weren’t in the electronic system at all. “I sent through some discrepancies where the Make or Model did not exist in the vehicle table at all, and they got rejected by reason that the ‘Make does not exist in the vehicle table.'” he says. “So I asked, well why not then?”
“Eventually I got the emails of the guys in the NAPA corporate cataloging department in Atlanta, and I sent them a long-winded email about why I thought these obscure listings were important,” he says. “After hearing me out, in late 2008 they agreed to let me submit vehicles for inclusion into the vehicle table.” Suddenly, his mission was clear. “They sent me a spreadsheet to use, and said, ‘We will research the information you send. If we think it’s valid and needs to be added we will do so.'” he explains. “So I got to work…. and for the record, I never submitted any new vehicle that got rejected.”
Since then, Matt has worked to get all kinds of automotive exotica into the NAPA parts database. We’re talking prototype cars that were built in tiny runs, cars built by forgotten automakers… cars that barely existed before the factories they came from were foreclosed upon and shut down. Matt didn’t just submit an entry for the Nissan Altra EV, he also made sure NAPA was aware of the Ford Ranger Electric and Toyota RAV4 Electric, too. Yes—the ancient ones from decades ago. He saw to it that every TVR since 1971 was in the books, too. Other exotics he’s submitted include the Vector M8 and M12, the Morgan three-wheeler, the Panoz Roadster, and even the beloved Bricklin SV-1. Koenigsegg and Spyker models are in the NAPA books, too, thanks to Matt’s hard work.
I’ve only named a handful of the full list Matt provided; it’s a project he continues to this day. I decided I had to see for myself, and I was duly impressed—you can chuck a 1967 Toyota 2000GT and find some of the common parts right on the NAPA website. You could literally walk into a store and find the spark plugs you need for one of the rarest Toyotas ever built, and in part that is thanks to Matt’s work.
It might sound odd to focus on such obscure models. After all, who is going into NAPA to look up parts for a Bollare Bluecar or Pininfarina Spider? The vast majority of customers are looking for parts for mainstream modern cars and trucks. When Matt first advocated for covering the weird stuff, the pushback he received was that it wasn’t worth the time. “I really can’t argue with that logic, but by then, the catalog was pretty well fully fleshed out, at least as far as the common listings were concerned,” he says. “My argument was, everybody has the easy stuff… why not prove how much better we are than the others?”
While it’s an edge case, he believes it proves something about the business. “No one’s likely to come to us for parts for a Bitter, but doesn’t it show the public that there’s no vehicle we haven’t heard of?” he says. It’s also true that obscure cars have a lot of weird parts, but they often have a lot of mainstream ones, too. “Sure, if you’re part of the Bricklin Club you probably know that ball joints for an SV-1 are AMC pieces,” he says. “But wouldn’t it be nice if a Bricklin owner could go into any NAPA store, and have a kid look up ball joints for his SV-1 without any issue, even if he’s never heard of one? Especially since we might already have them on the shelf.”
When Matt first contacted NAPA’s database team about submitting more cars, he was instructed to focus his efforts on what was properly relevant. “My submissions must be North American, road legal complete cars, meaning kit cars and Show & Display cars wouldn’t be considered,” he says. “I needed to supply supporting documentation for this, and complete as many data fields in the template as practical.” The key was making sure he got the information right, first time. “Accuracy was of utmost importance, because all the vendors reference the vehicle table for supplying parts listings,” he says. “If you get it wrong you can miss out on sales, or at least make folks question the accuracy of your data.” It’s also a problem for customers at the parts counter. “People don’t want to hear you “assume” a 1991 Yugo is the same as a 1990,” he says, something that would resonate with many a car enthusiast.
“My first submission was the Tucker 48, which was fairly easy, and I wanted to start with that one because I knew Champion had spark plugs listed for it, and thought that would be the coolest thing ever,” he says. “These were fairly easy to document, since the fate of basically every Tucker ever built is known.” Over time, he developed a routine approach when it came to submitting cars. “I would basically Google the vehicle and find out everything I could about it,” he says. “The usual place to start was either a marque specialist website or forum… there’s a surprising amount of knowledge out there specific to certain models of cars that proves to be indispensable,” he says. “Once I had my data template filled out, I would do a little like Mercedes does on The Autopian, and give a brief historical writeup on the car, and then I would mention the parts listings our paper catalog already had for the submitted vehicle, as a way of validating the submission’s veracity.”
With the Tucker submitted, his work continued apace. Next up was the 1993 Ford Mustang Cobra R, then the Pininfarina Spider. “The history on the Pininfarina takes a fair bit of explanation, and clarification on why it’s not technically a Fiat,” he says. “Almost all catalogs get this wrong, and even ours still isn’t 100% correct, long after I added it.” The obscure Bitter SC came next, posing some real challenge. “There’s not a lot of Bitter knowledge out there, and I was having difficulty determining whether U.S. imports included 1981 and 1987 model year cars,” he says.
“I started reaching out to owners I’d found through the Bitter Owners Club, beginning my experiences with emailing experts and owners for help with the data.” It also taught him the value of car registries as a data source. ” They’re extremely useful for determining what model years cars were sold as, as well as approximate vehicle population size.” Sadly, he was only able to list coolant and A/C flush as Bitter parts at NAPA, due to the limited information on offer. “I feel bad for Bitter owners, parts are nearly unobtainable, but whatever is shared with other cars, the people that know don’t like sharing too much,” he says. “And certainly very few parts suppliers even bother attempting parts cataloging.”
When it came to Spyker’s range, the Spyker Owners Forum proved invaluable with its registry of all known Spykers arranged by VIN. “This was enlightening, and after becoming part of the forum I met a Dutch fellow named Edvar van Daalen, who had developed a way to webscrape CarFax for Spyker VINs,” Matt explains. “It was he who taught me how VINs work, how they are put together, the meaning of all the digits, and how you can use this knowledge.” Matt also began using EPA certification data for information on U.S. market cars, which further supported his research. He took the lessons learned from the Spyker community, and applied them further when he started later researching Koenigseggs. “That’s what ultimately led to me starting the Koenigsegg Registry project, which lives on today as EggRegistry.com,” he says with pride.
Matt credits the car community for his many research successes. “A lot of my data came from marque specialists, marque-specific web pages and actual owners I reached out to that were happy to share information,” he says. “One thing I learned, enthusiasts by and large love talking to people about their cars, and love teaching others about them, and spreading that passion.”
Ultimately, Matt’s efforts have been a labor of love. Sure, NAPA is never going to carry a set of carbon brakes for a Pininfarina Battista, nor seatbelts for a Honda FCX. Matt’s work is still limited to the parts that are actually on offer at the nation-spanning retailer. That means in many cases, you’re only going to find common stuff that your obscure automaker might have nabbed from a mainstream supplier or major OEM. If your oddball car doesn’t use a mainstream engine or drivetrain, the parts listings can be limited to off-the-shelf stuff like coolant or wiper blades.
But still, there are some wonderful surprises. If you wander in looking for an ignition coil for a Subaru 360, or a 12-volt battery for your Tesla Roadster, the listing is there waiting.
It’s obvious not very practical for auto parts retailers to pay much attention to forgotten models from forgotten brands, to be sure. And yet, it’s somehow nice to see that they’re remembered, in databases and parts records across the land. Acknowledging the memories of the truly weird cars is really a key value of many enthusiasts, and Matt’s work shows that in spades. Plus, I just wrote an article about NAPA Auto Parts, so there’s definitely a marketing benefit to all of that hard work.
Image credits: Subaru, Koenigsegg, Bricklin, NAPA photo from Steve Morgan CC BY-SA 3.0, NAPA via screenshot
Surprisingly (to me) the nearest Napa store to me in Hollywood (CA) is almost 10 miles away according to their store locator, so I probably won’t be going there often. I used to rely on the Hollywood Blvd. Pep Boys, but it’s closed now, so it’s lately, it’s been the Autozone stores on Sunset or Melrose recently, where I bought some hoses to hopefully find the evap leak that’s causing a CEL on my daily driver. Still, it’s nice to know that Mr. Sexton went to all that trouble, and I appreciate it just in general, not because my own cars are a bit old.
If there were a Napa store closer to me I’d totally patronize it as my first-stop, in gratitude for Mr. Sexton’s efforts, but it’s like an hour to cross 10 miles of LA basin on a weekday. 🙁
Thank you so much Matt, one of the reasons that Napa is and has been my go to parts store is the superior cataloging and I’ve been amazed at some of the brands that pop up in the catalog. While some of those cars mentioned are unlikely to have a DIY customer roll in you might find the shop who’s customer may have one of those obscure vehicles and this can help cement NAPA as the go to parts choice for all of their needs. As we know the parts that go out the back door are what keeps a store in business in today’s world.
You’re welcome, and thank you! 🙂
As a longtime NAPA parts guru, thank you.
So you must be the one who added the 1897 Winton Phaeton to the catalog then. The earliest vehicle listing that actually has parts assigned to it.
I would be greatly appreciated if you could add stuff for a 1942 Amercian LaFrance.
You are spot on, sir! The Winton listings were one of mine. There’s been a glitch in the software for about five years however which doesn’t allow us to add anything older than 1900 to the invoice from cataloging, even though it says it did. Believe me I’ve been pestering them about this.
I’ll see what I can do about the American LaFrance, can you tell me where I might find some rudimentary data sets?
If you’re talking about the Pininfarina Spider that was the successor to the Fiat Spider 2000, isn’t the Pininfarina actually called the Azzurra, not the spider?
That was a really tough data point which I never fully resolved. I found it referred to as the Azzurra and also the Spider in different contexts. It’s been a long time since I did it but if I recall correctly I found the EPA certification tied to a “Spider”, and I figured since it was an evolution of the Fiat Spider most people would accept that.
NAPA is definitely my favorite of the parts stores. They just seem to “get it” in a way the others don’t. Maybe this article shows that.
This work is really cool! And even if there is only coolant available for some of the more obscure offerings, simply having the listing leaves it open to add more. You can’t even begin cataloging the parts if you don’t have the vehicle to associate it with. Maybe one day, the dataset will be worth something outside of simply indexing parts.
Thanks Chris, and that was the goal when I started. The parts suppliers continually surprise, like when the wiper blade for a 2018 Koenigsegg Agera suddenly appeared!
NAPA seems to be the only place that knows GM put heavy-duty drums on the rear brakes of the Vista Cruiser (and sister vehicles) AND carries those drums.
I am going to test your work, Matt – There’s a NAPA just down the road from me and I’m going to see if they know the wiper blades for the Allante are a really specific low-profile type (to fit in the narrow space between the hood and cowl. It would be nice to have a local source.
I’ve not run into the Allante blade before, what we list seems to be a standard blade so if it’s not correct then I’d have to follow up with Trico (maker of our branded blades).
If it doesn’t work out, don’t feel too bad, I tried every brand we had and the only thing I can get to fit my XJ8 are the OEM ones, regardless of what NAPA says.
We recently had a new NAPA spring up in what used to be a Rite-Aid. It’s nice to see a big one like that. I grew up making runs to NAPA for my dad and it always felt like they had so much on hand, whether for his log truck or any of the family vehicles, and you almost never needed to order something.
In retrospect, my dad was a regular customer and they probably kept things on hand specifically for him, but they did also just have a ton of parts on the shelves.
The thing about NAPA the majority of stores are independently owned and the owner has a wide latitude in what parts they keep in stock. That means they can stock something that might be a low pop code but they have enough customers to make it worth keeping it in stock, to keep regular customers happy and most importantly coming back.
This is really cool work.
I wish there was something similar for campers, but I’m sure that’s its own can of worms. I was needing new seals for the wheel bearings for my old Apache camper, and I knew the bearing numbers, but Napa wasn’t able to find the seals since it didn’t go on a car. Ended up at O’Reilys who was more willing to find something, though I still had to do my own searching on the internet to come up with possible part numbers.
That’s surprising, we have seal specification books still that you can reference by shaft diameter and bore size. Maybe they discarded their old paper books? This is why we never have…
Most of the time the seal is a 17146 (Dexter 010-019-00), but there are others.
Yeah, I’m not sure if the particular person was in a bad mood or what. Good to know though!
My local Napa has a lot of the paper catalogs still and finds obscure seals that way.
I’ve recently rediscovered NAPA.
I grew up helping my dad do jobs and the local NAPA was great for jobbers. Then it was sold and I found myself going to AutoZone or Reillys. But service there sucks unless it’s something they can look up by make and model which is often either not possible (for the reason this article covers) OR the part I’m looking for is for a boat, tractor, etc. Finally, after visiting all the big name parts stores searching for a certain gas strut for my boat (that none of them could look up by parts spec without a make and model) I stumbled on another NAPA. And I’ll be damned if that guy didn’t whip out a paperback reference and have the part for me in like 2 minutes. Strut length opened/closed, spring force, connection type BAM found it and had one in stock.
It’s because of people like Matt. People that actually know cars, eat, sleep, breath cars. Those people get it. And those people know how to get the job done.
I’m so grateful I have a NAPA just 4 miles from me. I’ve ridden my velomobile there to get parts for the GT6.
Would you happen to have the uncropped version of that Koenigsegg CC8 picture? I need that as my wallpaper.
Also, Great article!
NAPA whiffed for me on brakes for my Fiesta ST. Rotors for the standard Fiesta are smaller and that’s what they gave me. Naturally it was discovered when I tried to put the car back together.
At least they were kind enough to give me the bucket discount even though the boxes didn’t exactly fit in said bucket.
That is likely the responsibility of the brake rotor manufacturer who stated it would fit an ST, and NAPA just passed that info through.
Important work, thanks for reporting on this.
Seen your posts in the past, you are doing the Lord’s work here. NAPA is definitely the go to for obscure parts and brakes. Period. I’m blessed with a few good ones locally. The employees are always knowlegable as they cater to the professional crowd.
Well now we know why you can buy a power window switch kit for a curved dash Oldsmobile.
This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I’ve worked in the auto parts world most of my life, first with an internet retailer, and now with a manufacturer, and cataloging the correct vehicle applications to parts has long been a major part of my job which I’m very good at. Nerding out on obscure cars and filling in gaps in the catalog sounds like a dream to me, combining two of my biggest strengths.
I find it particularly impressive that it seems like they were doing this with their own homebrewed database and have the freedom to add whatever they want. Sadly in my job I have to focus on the popular applications with fast selling parts and don’t have the time or need to go into the weeds with oddball cars. I’m also locked into using vehicles that exist in the Autocare Association’s Vehicle Configuration Database as they power the Aftermarket Catalog Exchange Standard that most retailers now use, which is limited to the North American market and doesn’t have some of the weirdest stuff (Bitter isn’t present, for example).
Funnily enough I know people who owned a Bricklin SV-1 and Bitter SC recently and raced them in the 24 Hours of Lemons, so maybe they used Matt’s work to find stuff after all.
Dad was a store manager at one of the “A-brand” twins when he retired. A lot at those places that frustrated him.
When this all started, the head of the cataloging department at NAPA was a guy who was very much of the same thought as myself; we got along well and that’s why a lot of what I did was successful. It was very much a homegrown vehicle table, and like you I’ve had the thought that working for them would be a perfect fit for me.
Under the current regime there is a directive to build ACES data into NAPA’s vehicle table. As it sits NAPA’s exceeds ACES data in these areas. I’ve spoken to these folks and they’ve assured me nothing we have above and beyond ACES will be removed, and I sure hope they stay true to that.
The frustrating part is I cannot catalog parts unless it’s driven by data from the suppliers. So while I know Consulier GTP engine parts are Chrysler numbers, I can’t simply provide that even if I know the cross reference and have the Consulier parts list (which I do). It only gets cataloged if someone at the engine parts vendor has bothered, which they may or may not, depending on their policies. Some are better than others, for instance Fel-Pro has cataloged gasket sets for the Mosler MT900S because someone at Fel-Pro was aware the engine is a standard LS-6. But I couldn’t get wheel bearings cataloged for the Bitter even though they existed in the old Timken paper catalog.
I’m a persistent type of guy though, so I always keep working.
Yeah as a retailer you have the freedom to catalog and advertise products however you want. My last job at an internet retailer entailed taking manufacturer’s ACES data and homogenizing it into our own database, but our database sucked. NAPA’s homebrewed one clearly does not (although I share the frustration of shopping online and seeing bunches of non US-market vehicles clogging the vehicle selector, as discussed elsewhere in the comments). Now working for a part manufacturer I’m basically beholden to whatever cataloging standards the majority of distributors use, which at this time is ACES, and sometimes ACES data is wrong or incomplete. ACES just changed submodels on all F-450 and F-550 trucks and basically wiped out the work I previously did on those trucks.
Looks like NAPA sells my company’s products so you have likely encountered and entered catalog data that I personally created, although everything we make is for more mainstream vehicles. I put a lot of effort into the quality of my data and SEMA has repeatedly given us awards for our data quality.
I’ve found many errors in ACES data myself, which is unfortunately now working its way into our vehicle table. I brought this up to our people and they suggested I try to get a hold of the ACES people. Which I did try, but I have no idea how to become a contributing member or whether they would accept my research.
It’s a minor point, but just for one example they have 2007 and 2009 Veyrons, which do not exist, at least not in U.S. VIN and certification terms.
If you’re a member of the Autocare Association you can report an issue with the VCDB to them. In my experience they’re pretty slow to fix them, but they do.
My own car of 24 years used to be wrong in the VCDB. For many years it said my 1985 Ford LTD LX was carbureted, which is wrong. So every parts retailer that used ACES showed it wrong too. Thankfully it has since been fixed and now correctly shows the fuel delivery type as CFI.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll try to get into that.
Over the past years, I’ve been seeking out NAPAs for my brick and mortar parts needs; couldn’t be happier, and it’s all due to Matt’s influence here in autopia. While he’s clearly on another level, even the more everyday store employees have a knowledge and dedication to the job that’s hit or often miss at the other national chains.
And at least from my perspective, NAPA seems to have a goldilocks enthusiast-friendly customer service orientation – there if you need them, but not incessantly asking if you need help when maybe you really are just browsing the tools to see if there’s some impulse-buy wrench you might want, or should you switch oil brands, or …
Much appreciated Jack!
+1. NAPAs can be hit or miss, but the counter guys always seem to clear the relatively low bar of paying attention to your question and having heard of your car.
My local store is great. I recently needed some universal rubber hose but wasn’t sure of the size, the counter guy let me go in back and snip a handful of different size samples off the reel to take home and test-fit.
Not all heroes wear capes.
I’d like to do more business with NAPA, primarily because they ARE able to get obscure stuff, but unfortunately most of the stores in my area are more interested in selling to commercial accounts than to walk-up retail customers. Last time I went there, several customers including me waited 20-30 minutes for the clerks to finish their phone calls. When it became my turn, the clerk was very helpful in finding me a bunch of various 6 volt light bulbs for my 1980 Honda C70 Passport!
maybe its cliche to talk of a “Mount Rushmore” of niche auto enthusiasts, but Mr. Sexton is definitely in the running!
Lewin, we began talking about this so long ago, I had forgotten to follow up further! So surprised to see this posted today!
Thanks, and I hope I can answer more of your questions.
My personal test for anything like this is seeing if SRT is listed as its own brand and sure enough, it is.
I salute you and the effort this has taken over the years.
I always said that if I ever bought a Viper, I would be sure to get a ’13-’14, and would insist on referring to it as an ‘SRT’ just to aggravate people. 😀
The one I always use is STI. For whatever reason STI really wanted to certify the WRX S209 as its own make, which they successfully did. So if you’re being pedantic, the WRX S209 is technically an STI S209.
I argued for this one with the NAPA folk and it was their decision that breaking it out that way would be too confusing. So currently it sits under Subaru.
As someone who catalog parts for a living and is also pretty pedantic I have learned that being technically correct isn’t important if it actually creates confusion for the average consumer. I still have to alias Ram trucks as Dodges in some places because some old farts out there still call them Dodge Rams despite them not being badged that since like 2011.
Is that why there is a ram emblem on the grille of my Dodge?
Wondered about that
I’m not sure what you’re asking here, but Dodge used the Ram’s head logo on their vehicles as far back as 1993, long before they spun off Ram as its own truck brand in 2010.
My point was that Ram trucks since 2010 don’t say Dodge on them anywhere, but lots of people still refer to them as “Dodge Rams” so any time I market a product for them I still have to call out “Dodge / Ram.”
Dodge semis from the 50s had beautiful rams head hood ornaments. Long history there
I did not know that!
Mine only has a ram’s head on the hood, and it’s only there because it would leave a hole if I removed it.
Every other emblem has been stripped off already, which probably isn’t fooling anyone!
I never got the ram thing.
It always seemed cartoonish to me.
Now, hearing about a cast hood ornament, maybe that would work?
Hi Matt, thanks for all your hard work! Here’s one to add to your list:
The oil filter Part #: FIL 1313 does not, repeat, does not fit a 1970 Triumph GT6. That filter will fit a TR6. Although the engine blocks are basically the same, the filter canister on the GT6 is smaller, at least on the LHD models, to make room for the steering shaft.
The database for every auto parts store in the US has this mistake.
Thanks Rad, and I will do everything I can to get that error corrected!
Similarly, NAPA no longer offers an oil filter for a Nissan Terrano. FIL 1043 is discontinued.
Man, I have never even HEARD of a 1043.
Wix equivalent is WL7155, I have a non-NAPA supplier that still has two, I can grab them for you if you’d like. 😉
I remember NAPA had the rear license plate light for a 1966 AMC Rambler wagon. I was flabbergasted. I mean, it’s probably shared with a million other cars, but the fact it was in the database was amazing.
A few years back when I owned my delorean it wasn’t in the autozone catalog. I knew what I needed by part number. They would always aske me though. I would just respond with “It’s not in there”. They would then say “We have every car” Ok “Delorean. Then I would get “Like the one from BTTF?” Yes. “Are you in it?” No. I have a part number.
I salute you, sir – a true Autopianaut!
Is THIS the motherfucker who clogged up my catalog at NAPA with 47 different variants of “Mexico Only” or otherwise incredibly obscure variants of otherwise common cars? That came up FIRST when searching for said common car?
Hey hey, we can all be friends, right? [wipes brow nervously]
Good grief. That response, especially with its language, was completely uncalled for and quite unnecessarily rude. Yeah, begone, varlet. Not sure about such a person being capable of being friends so you might be right about wiping your brow nervously, lol.
Heh, I think I came across much more aggressive than I actually meant, it’s hard to portray tone on the internet 😉 It was pretty funny back in the day explaining to newbies which particular model of “Chevrolet Truck” they needed to pick.
I saw the comment as amusing, rather than aggressive. Perhaps that’s just my white trash brain’s way of interpreting things.
I read it tongue in cheek. I think it’s one of those things where if you experienced it then you get it. And it’s funny.
The Mexico/Carribean Islands makes and models were not my doing. I could tell you who it was, but he’s retired.
Remember that NAPA has considerable presence in those markets.
No need to worry or apologize, those markets are just as valid as any other market, it’s all good. People can just scroll down to the pertinent info, no whining necessary.
Very true, and I’m mostly kidding. Once you got used to it, it wasn’t a big deal. Plus, more information is ALWAYS better, especially when it comes to obscure stuff. The only issue was, which was sort of alluded to in the article, is some stuff is just too obscure to even bother putting in the catalog, like the “trans flush kit” being the only item that shows, or other completely universal parts. I do wish Napas back of house guys were a little better at separating markets though, or at least making it a select-able option. Not a lot of Brazillian Domestic Market Fords in rural Eastern Washington.
I do agree with the idea there should be a way to geofence some of the applications, upon the user’s choosing. We both know however that NAPA is trying to simplify to one global format. I can only imagine it might be getting tougher now that there are some NAPA-branded locations in Europe too.
Another reason I like NAPA is all the racing sponsorship it’s ramping up in Europe. Those who think the chain’s all Chase Elliott would be amazed at what else is going on now.
I’ve even seen NAPA sponsorship on the track at a Spanish F4 race last year.
No, leave them all in there. I love scrolling past a Toyota Cavalier even though it was Japan market only. Or Toyota Tamaraw.
NAPA even sponsored a video on Richard Hammond’s YouTube channel, DriveTribe! And by “sponsored”, I mean they actually supplied a bunch of parts for Hammond’s daughter’s first project car, a MINI Cooper S. That was the first time I even knew that NAPA had a presence in the UK.
Wow, who pissed on your Haynes manual this morning?
I’d be happy to get you that Haynes manual sir, it’ll just be 4 weeks and ships out of Sheboygan for 28 dollars freight.
My eyes are tearing I’m laughing so hard. Thank you.