Where the idea came from
A few years ago I bought a used vehicle. The seller handed me a logbook with a handful of stamps, a couple of receipts folded up in the back cover, and said "it's had full service history." The stamps were genuine — but there were gaps. Three years where nothing was recorded. The vehicle ran fine, but I had no idea what had been done, by whom, or when.
A few years later I sold a different vehicle — one I'd owned since new. I had nearly a decade of records: every invoice from the mechanic, every set of tyres, the time the alternator went, the time I replaced the battery myself and kept the receipt. I had a folder on my computer with years of emailed PDFs. I had a shoebox with paper invoices. I had notes in my phone.
No buyer was ever going to dig through all of that. I couldn't present it in any coherent way. So I ended up saying "full service history" and hoping they believed me — because the story was all there, but scattered.
That's the gap Carchive fills. Not a logbook, not a folder of scanned PDFs — a proper home for the complete history of a vehicle. Structured, searchable, and ready to hand over when you sell.
What we're building
Carchive is a digital vehicle history tool for everyday owners. You add your vehicles, upload your records — invoices, receipts, photos, emailed PDFs — and Carchive organises them into a clean, chronological timeline. You can categorise work by area (engine, brakes, tyres, electrical), set reminders for upcoming services, and log your own maintenance with supporting evidence.
When it's time to sell, you export or transfer the complete history to the new owner. They get proof, not promises.
We're starting with the basics done properly: manual record entry, file uploads, and a timeline that actually makes sense. AI-assisted invoice scanning and deeper integrations are on the roadmap — but the core value is just having everything in one place, well organised.
Who it's for
Carchive is for anyone who cares about their vehicle and wants to preserve its history — whether that's a classic vehicle collector who wants to document every restoration, a home mechanic who does their own oil changes and wants credit for it, a family managing multiple vehicles, or someone buying a used vehicle who wants to know exactly what they're getting.
It's also, frankly, for people who are sick of opening the glovebox and finding a mess of paper that tells half a story.