cars-data.com — Car Specs API + MCP server

REST API and remote MCP server over cars-data.com's multilingual vehicle-specs database: 102,191 vehicle variants, 1,300+ models, 5,299 generations, 180 spec types across 19 categories, in 19 languages (including Arabic, RTL).

• REST API: https://api.cars-data.com/v1
• MCP server (streamable HTTP): https://api.cars-data.com/mcp
• OpenAPI spec: openapi.yaml
• Also distributed as an Apify Actor (pay-per-event, no API key needed)

MCP server

Connect directly from Claude, ChatGPT connectors, Cursor, or Windsurf:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cars-data": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://api.cars-data.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Tools exposed:

The MCP server is unauthenticated for discovery (rate-limited per IP). No signup required to try it.

REST API

Base URL: https://api.cars-data.com/v1. Full reference in openapi.yaml.

curl https://api.cars-data.com/v1/variants/42164/specs?locale=de \
  -H "X-Api-Key: cd_free_..."

Get a free API key

curl -X POST https://api.cars-data.com/v1/keys \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "you@example.com", "accept_tos": true}'

Free tier: 1,000 requests/month, 20 req/min.

Pricing

• Free — 1,000 req/month, instant self-serve key, no payment.
• Apify — pay-per-event, billed through the Apify Store listing, no API key needed.
• x402 — per-call USDC payment on Base for agents that want to pay without an account (not yet live — see the project roadmap).

There is no subscription/Stripe tier — Free and Apify (and, later, x402) are the only paid paths.

Data & attribution

Data comes from cars-data.com's multilingual vehicle-specs database. See cars-data.com/api/terms for the API Terms of Service (attribution required on Free tier; no bulk extraction / resale).

License

The API and its documentation in this repository are provided as-is. Access to the underlying dataset is governed by the API Terms of Service, not an open-source license — this repo documents and hosts the server implementation, not a redistributable dataset.