#! /usr/bin/env perl 
use Modern::Perl;
use strict;
use warnings;
use feature qw( say state ); # Perl 5.10.0 or greater

my @inventory = split /\R/,
"YEAR      MAKE         MODEL        PRICE
2003      abc          rel           999 
1999      hds          sdf           100
2010      kls          pol           1400";

my %columns = map { state $c = 0; lc, $c++ }
              map { split }
              (my $header = shift @inventory);

print "sort by? ";
chomp(my $lookfor = lc <STDIN>);

die "bad sort criteria" unless exists $columns{$lookfor};

my $sortcol = $columns{$lookfor};
say for $header,
    sort {
        if (grep { /\D/ } (split ' ', $a)[$sortcol], (split ' ', $b)[$sortcol]) {
            (split ' ', $a)[$sortcol] cmp (split ' ', $b)[$sortcol]
        } else {
            (split ' ', $a)[$sortcol] <=> (split ' ', $b)[$sortcol]
        }
    } @inventory;