Cars.co.za Data Parser & API
Cars.co.za is one of South Africa’s two dominant car marketplaces — carrying around 74K listings alongside its motoring-media arm — and Carapis can extract its full listing data, including clean English fields, mileage, service history and dealer info, through one REST API. Its well-structured English listings and low anti-bot profile make it an accessible, high-quality source for South African used-car data.
On request — not in the live feed today. We do not continuously crawl Cars.co.za right now. Activation takes 2–3 weeks of engineering and is quoted per source, because each one ships with dedicated proxies, anti-bot tuning and ongoing maintenance. Ask us to add it.
| Country | South Africa |
|---|---|
| Type | Portal |
| Vehicle types | used, new, dealer |
| Monthly visits | high |
| Active listings | ~74K listings |
| API access | No public API (parse-only) |
| Parse priority | ★★★★☆ |
| Official site | www.cars.co.za |
What is Cars.co.za?
Cars.co.za is a leading South African automotive marketplace and motoring-media brand, listing used and new vehicles from dealers across the country. It combines a large classifieds inventory — around 74K listings — with editorial content and awards (such as Cars.co.za Consumer Awards), giving it strong consumer reach. Listings are in English and cleanly structured for extraction.
Market Position
Cars.co.za is one of the two dominant South African car portals, with around 74K live listings, sitting alongside AutoTrader.co.za as the core of the country’s well-structured marketplace duopoly. Its low anti-bot profile and clean English-language fields make it straightforward to parse reliably. Together with AutoTrader.co.za, it gives Carapis broad, dealer-rich coverage of the South African used-car market.
What the API returns
Response schema
Indicative — this is the shape, not a guarantee. Every source returns the same structure, so what you build against does not change when you add one. Which fields carry a value depends on the source and on the individual listing: a site that does not publish mileage returns null there, and Cars.co.za is no exception.
List — GET /apix/api/vehicles/ — returns 30 fields per vehicle:
idstringsource_codestringbrand_namestringbrand_slugstringmodel_namestringmodel_slugstringtrimstringyearintegerprice_usdintegermileageintegerfuel_typeFuelTypeEnumtransmissionTransmissionEnumbody_typeBodyTypeEnumcolorColorEnumseller_typeSellerTypeEnumregionstringsource_locationobjecthas_accidentbooleanis_new_vehiclebooleanis_verifiedbooleanstatusVehicleStatusEnumis_availablebooleanfirst_seen_atstringlast_seen_atstringthumbVehiclePhotophotosarrayphotos_countintegerhas_valuationbooleanhas_llm_analysisbooleananalysisobject
Detail — GET /apix/api/vehicles/{id}/ — adds 23 more:
generationstringprice_originalstringprice_original_currencystringoriginal_msrpstringengine_ccintegerseat_countintegerdrive_typeDriveTypeEnumhas_simple_repairbooleanhas_recallbooleanrecall_fulfilledbooleanwarranty_typestringinspection_passedbooleanowner_countintegeris_undervaluedbooleanvaluation_scorenumberfeaturesarraydescriptionstringlisting_urlstringlisting_idstringvinstringvehicle_nostringavailability_checked_atstringstatus_changed_atstring
Abbreviated example:
{
"id": "0193f2c1-...",
"source_code": "encar",
"brand_name": "BMW",
"model_name": "320i",
"trim": "M Sport",
"year": 2021,
"price_usd": 28400,
"price_original": "38900000",
"price_original_currency": "KRW",
"mileage": 45000,
"fuel_type": "gasoline",
"transmission": "automatic",
"has_accident": false,
"listing_url": "https://...",
"photos": [{ "url": "https://cdn.carapis.com/..." }],
"first_seen_at": "2026-09-28T11:04:22Z",
"is_available": true
}Which sources you can actually query is answered by GET /apix/api/sources/ with your API key — it is the list your account can pull today, and it is the one to trust over any page on this site.
Clean English fields, service-history flags and dealer detail make Cars.co.za well suited to pricing intelligence and market research across South Africa.
API Quick Start
Python
import requests
resp = requests.get(
"https://api.carapis.com/v2/listings",
params={"source": "cars-co-za", "limit": 20},
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"},
)
for car in resp.json()["results"]:
print(car["make"], car["model"], car["year"], car["price"])Get an API key at my.carapis.com and see the full API reference. Pricing is on the pricing page .
Use Cases
- Pricing intelligence — dealer pricing and service-history fields feed residual-value models for dealers.
- Market research — combine with AutoTrader.co.za to map the full South African used-car market. See market research.
- Import / export — structured English data helps buyers source from South Africa. See import & export.