.CAR File Extension

By design, CAR files store information about all models for one make (or company) from a single year. Car files are often distributed as collections, or an archive that contains multiple CAR files in a compressed format.

NOTE: The Car Explorer application is no longer available.

Application resources in the older BREW 3.x and 4.x development programs use the .BRX extension. However, BRX files have been deprecated with the release of Brew MP. You can convert BRX files to CAR files using the Brew MP SDK.

NOTE: The Brew MP SDK is a suite of programs and plug-ins. For example, the SDK includes Brew MP development plug-ins for Microsoft Visual Studio, Adobe Flash, and Eclipse.

CAR files are not intended to be opened. Instead, they are packaged with an app to store assets used by the app.

However, if you are looking to extract or modify an asset, such as an icon or texture, you can open a CAR file with various Mac programs, including Asset Catalog Tinkerer, ThemeEngine, iOS Asset Extractor, and acextract. For example, to open a CAR file with Asset Catalog Tinkerer, select File → Open.

NOTE: While Apple Xcode creates CAR files, it cannot open them.

Several applications, including Asset Catalog Tinkerer and Pragmatic Code Crunch, can extract assets from CAR files and convert them to other formats.

For example, Asset Catalog Tinkerer can convert the assets stored in a CAR file to PNG images. To convert all of the assets in a CAR file with Asset Catalog Tinkerer, select File → Export All Images. Additionally, to convert a specific asset with Asset Catalog Tinkerer, select File → Export Selected Images.

CAR is a compression utility included with versions 4.6B and below of SAP. It can be used to compress one or more files into a CAR archive, for easier delivery to end-users. Users can then decompress the archive using CAR on their system.

In version 4.6C, SAP overhauled the CAR utility and renamed it to SAPCAR. SAPCAR produces archives that use the .SAR extension. However, SAPCAR can still decompress and extract files from CAR archives.

You can extract the files a CAR archive contains using the CAR or SAPCAR utilities (Windows, Linux).

NOTE: CAR files are located in the Autos folder of the game's directory. Unfortunately, the Viva Media Gary Gadget: Building Cars program is no longer available for download.