Search by Vehicle ID Numbers (VIN)?

I have a two pronged question. I have a client who would like to sell parts for cars. One of the search requirements he would like is to search by VIN.

1. Is there something in the base install I can configure to simulate searching for VIN?
2. Does anyone know of any mods that can accomplish this?

To give some background. if a customer entered a full VIN, one can determine the manufacturer, model and model year. So when entering products there would need to be searchable fields that would hold manufacturer, model and model year. The search then would have to parse the VIN and send that off to the search query.

First let me start by saying Good Luck.
Zen Cart is such a great shopping cart but it is built with the idea of being as general as possible so everyone can use it. The software is free and can be customized to do anything but sometimes it is easier to get codes that are already made instead of building it from scratch.

What your customer referring to is called Vin decoding it is used a lot in the used car parts and salvage yards. I personally use such software at my job (salvage yard). There are a few companies in the US that offer server based database that is updated regularly. We pay $600 a month at my job for the software package.

Now the question you need to ask your client is would he be willing to commit to a monthly payment with a company that offer that service. He is better off looking into a shopping cart that is designed for automotive application or he can use Zen Cart with minor modification till his business grow then he can invest in some of the automotive software as they do get expensive fast (up to $5000/month).

I know a lot of automotive websites that use Zen Cart with no problems I personally use it and RaceonUSA use it too along with other big companies such as AIT Racing and so on.