CITCar Color IDsCIT Tools

GTA San Andreas and MTA:SA

Car Color IDs

127 colors

Closest color ID to any color

Colors 0 to 126 127

How MTA uses color IDs

Color IDs
0 to 126. MTA's color table has these 127 colors, the same as the game's carcols.dat except color 98 (see its card).
setVehicleColor
4 numbers are color IDs: colors 1, 2, 3 and 4. 3, 6, 9 or 12 numbers are RGB colors, 3 numbers for each color. With 3 numbers, colors 2 to 4 become black (0, 0, 0). 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 or 11 numbers give the error Incorrect number of color arguments.
getVehicleColor
getVehicleColor(theVehicle) gives the 4 color IDs. getVehicleColor(theVehicle, true) gives 12 numbers: the RGB of the 4 colors.
A car painted with RGB
getVehicleColor gives the closest color ID: the one with the smallest RGB distance, the lower ID when two are equally close. The box above uses the same rule.
Colors 3 and 4
MTA's own file says: "for the majority of vehicles Color 3 and Color 4 have no effect".
A new vehicle
When a script spawns a vehicle without colors, MTA picks one of its default color sets at random. These sets are the same as the game's for all 199 vehicles that have them, except the fourth color of one Squalo set (0 in MTA, 1 in the game file). 126 of the 127 colors are in at least one set as color 1 or 2.
Names
The names are the game's own, from carcols.dat. Some do not fit the color: 16 "rio red" is green.
Game notes
The game's carcols.dat calls colors 1 to 10 "service colours - careful with these" and color 126 "hot pink - do not use".

Where this comes from

  • Colors and the closest-ID rule: MTA:SA's source code, SharedUtil.Game.hpp (the color table and GetPaletteIndexFromRGB).
  • setVehicleColor and getVehicleColor: MTA:SA's source code, CLuaVehicleDefs.cpp.
  • Default color sets: MTA:SA's vehiclecolors.conf, checked against the game's carcols.dat.
  • Color names and police radio words: the game's data/carcols.dat from an installed copy of GTA San Andreas.
  • Vehicle names: MTA:SA's source code (CVehicleNames.cpp).
  • Checked on 22 October 2026 (MTA:SA source of 21 October 2026).