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The CarWise home page in ivory and forest green, "Great cars. Clear choices." over a silver SUV on a Highland road, with 129 cars, 91 used picks and 97 AWD options counted underneath.

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CarWise

Choosing a car by how solid it is, not by the brochure.

drawing074made oflit glassplates5drawn1 Nov 2026staticcarsthrowaway

The screen

the card's own material, at page scale

> open ideas/074-carwise --line machine

CarWise

usedAI and software1 Nov 20266 updatesidea_074

The brief

used · rev G

Buying a car means a week of review sites that each grade on something different, and listings that tell you everything except whether the thing will last.

So: one page of UK SUVs, 4x4s, saloons, estates and a few hatchbacks, new and used, up to about £50k. Each one gets a solidness score built from reliability, crash safety, build quality and weight. You can move the sliders if you care more about one of them than the others. Then you filter, rank, chart, put two cars head to head, or answer four questions and get a top five.

The figures come from Parkers, Euro NCAP, What Car?'s reliability survey and used-car listings, and every car's page says which source and when it was checked. Where a number couldn't be confirmed it shows as a dash. Nothing is estimated.

Plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript reading one JSON file. No build step and no backend, and it has done the job it was for.

The plates

5 · lift any one out
The CarWise home page in ivory and forest green, "Great cars. Clear choices." over a silver SUV on a Highland road, with 129 cars, 91 used picks and 97 AWD options counted underneath.
01 · The CarWise home page in ivory and forest green
The browse grid, filters for price, 0–60 mph and EV range down the left, and cards for a Tesla Model 3, Lexus NX and Volvo XC60, each with a solidness score in a ring and its price, power and Euro NCAP stars.
02 · The browse grid
The Help me choose wizard on its last step, "Your top 5 matches", with a used Hyundai Tucson plug-in hybrid at a 93% match and the reasons ticked beside it.
03 · The Help me choose wizard on its last step
Head-to-head between a 2023 Volvo XC60 and a 2021 Toyota RAV4, the Volvo winning six categories to four, with a solidness score under each car.
04 · Head-to-head between a 2023 Volvo XC60 and a 2021 Toyota RAV4
A scatter chart of price against solidness score, one coloured dot per car.
05 · A scatter chart of price against solidness score

The log

6 updates

An electric range filter, and "Help me choose", four questions that end in a top five with the reasons for each.

Five 4x4s, from the Defender 110 to the Compass 4xe.

A 0–60 mph slider and a make filter, and dark mode turned near-black with a plum tint.

From 44 cars to 124, in four batches. Large SUVs and 4x4s, then saloons, estates, and a handful of odd picks and EVs.

A rankings table you sort by any column, head-to-head, a body-type filter, and comparing up to six at once.

First version. 44 researched cars, a solidness score, and every figure linked to where it came from.