What are a spawn name and a model hash?

For an add-on vehicle the spawn name is whatever the <modelName> tag says in vehicles.meta. For a replace vehicle it is the name of the stock car being replaced. The name is not the name of the resource folder, not the title of the mod on gta5-mods.com and not the display name shown on the HUD.

The engine does not store model names as text. It stores the Jenkins one-at-a-time hash of the lowercase name, usually written joaat. Because the name is lowercased first, Adder, ADDER and adder all give the same hash.

The same value can be displayed in three ways, which often causes confusion when comparing lists: as an unsigned number, as a signed number (which is negative for roughly half of all names) and in hexadecimal. In FiveM Lua, GetHashKey returns the signed form.

RegisterCommand('car', function(source, args)
    local name = args[1] or 'adder'
    local model = GetHashKey(name)

    if not IsModelInCdimage(model) or not IsModelAVehicle(model) then
        print('Invalid vehicle model: ' .. name)
        return
    end

    RequestModel(model)
    while not HasModelLoaded(model) do
        Wait(0)
    end

    local ped = PlayerPedId()
    local pos = GetEntityCoords(ped)
    local vehicle = CreateVehicle(model, pos.x, pos.y, pos.z, GetEntityHeading(ped), true, false)
    SetPedIntoVehicle(ped, vehicle, -1)
    SetModelAsNoLongerNeeded(model)
end, false)

The check with IsModelInCdimage is what separates a clean error message from a script stuck waiting for a model that will never load.

One spelling has to be used consistently in several files. A mismatch in any of them breaks a different part of the car:

• <modelName> in vehicles.meta
• The model files mycar.yft and mycar_hi.yft
• The texture files mycar.ytd and mycar+hi.ytd, together with <txdName>
• <modelName> in carvariations.meta
• The VCF file name, for an ELS vehicle
• Any script, garage or shop configuration that lists the car: QBCore's vehicles.lua, the ESX vehicles table and Qbox's vehicle list each store it differently

To rename a car, change all of these together. Keep names short, lowercase and free of spaces and special characters, and make sure no other vehicle on the server, stock or add-on, already uses the name.

• Invalid model: the name typed does not match <modelName>, or the resource is not started. See invalid model.
• Spawns the wrong car: two resources use the same model name, or the name collides with a stock vehicle.
• Cannot find the spawn name of a downloaded mod: open its vehicles.meta and read <modelName>, or look at the .yft file names in the stream folder.

For base game vehicles, the Vehicle Spawn Codes tool is a searchable list of spawn names and hashes. For a new add-on, the Vehicles.meta Generator keeps the name consistent across the files it writes.