If the dataset is assumed valid and you avoid multi-word 'make' fields, LanX's approach would certainly seem to do the trick with this dataset. Note that  $extended_model has to be 'fixed' if the field does not exist, otherwise it's undefined.

>perl -wMstrict -le
"my @records = (
   '2011 Chevy Camaro',       '2011 Dodge Ram Crew Cab Short Bed',
   '2011 Ford F150 Platinum', '2011 GMC Cargo Van Extended',
   );
 ;;
 for my $record (@records) {
   my ($year, $make, $model, $extended_model) =
     split ' ', $record, 4;
   $extended_model //= '';
   print qq{'$year' '$make' '$model' '$extended_model'};
   }
"
'2011' 'Chevy' 'Camaro' ''
'2011' 'Dodge' 'Ram' 'Crew Cab Short Bed'
'2011' 'Ford' 'F150' 'Platinum'
'2011' 'GMC' 'Cargo' 'Van Extended'
[download]

Here's a demonstration of how using regular expression pattern matching instead of string split might be more correct, robust and extensible.

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my $valid_vehicle_description_pattern = qr{
    ((?:19|20)\d\d)        # $1 is Year
    \s+
    (                      # $2 is Make
        British\s+Leyland
      | Chev(?:y|rolet)
      | Dodge
      | Ford
      | (?:General\s+Motors|GMC?)
      | Hyundai
      | Kia
      | Nissan
      | Toyota
    )
    \s+
    (\S.*)                 # $3 is Model
}ix;

while (my $vehicle = <DATA>) {
    chomp $vehicle;

    if ($vehicle =~ $valid_vehicle_description_pattern) {
        my ($year, $make, $model) = ($1, $2, $3);

        print "Year: $year\tMake: $make\tModel: $model\n";
    }
    else {
        warn "Invalid vehicle description: $vehicle\n";
    }
}

__DATA__
1970 British Leyland Triumph Spitfire
2011 CHEVROLET CAMARO
2011 Chevy Camaro
2011 Dodge Ram Crew Cab Short Bed
2011 Ford F150 Platinum
2011 Ford Flex
2011 Ford Transit
2011 GMC Cargo Van Extended
2011 Hyundai Genesis Coupe
2011 Kia Sol
2011 Nissan Cube
2011 Toyota Prius
2015 Apple iCar
[download]

Please! Just change the delimiter when writing to something impossible in filenames, like "\t" (hopefully) and your problems when reading are all gone!

In comparison all other approaches are just insane hacks!

Or just avoid any intermediate files.

Yeah, field limits did the trick

split(/\t/, $_, 3) worked out.

What I want to do now is, I have a text file that lists the whole folder hierarchy.for example

C:\xx\yy\Desktop\BadWrap 2011\2011 Chevy Camaro
C:\xx\yy\Desktop\BadWrap 2011\2011 Chevy Camaro\JPEG\11_Chevy_Camaro D
+river.jpg
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I think I only want to now have two columns of info, one being the path and the second being the final folder/image. I don't want to modify the folder names/path, so I can't use the delimiter of \s+ or \t. Is there a way to make it only the last "\" seen per line?

I'm assuming then that each line is the name of a folder, spaces included. A bit of RegEx would do, as in the code below.

I'm sure the RegEx section could be redone to be cleaner and smaller, but I'm not at that level yet :) so I just did it in seperate steps.

use strict;

my $Car0 = "2011 Chevy Camaro";
my $Car1 = "2011 Dodge Ram Crew Cab Short Bed";
my $Car2 = "2011 Ford F150 Platinum";
my $Car3 = "2011 Ford Flex";
my $Car4 = "2011 Ford Transit";
my $Car5 = "2011 GMC Cargo Van Extended";
my $Car6 = "2011 Hyundai Genesis Coupe";
my $Car7 = "2011 Kia Sol";
my $Car8 = "2011 Nissan Cube";
my $Car9 = "2011 Toyota Prius";

my $OneCar = "";
my $Year = 0;
my $Make = "";
my $Model = "";

push( my @CarInfo, ( $Car0, $Car1, $Car2, $Car3, $Car4, $Car5, $Car6, 
+$Car7, $Car8, $Car9 ) );

foreach $OneCar( @CarInfo )
{
# initialize the variables
    $Year = $OneCar; $Make = $OneCar; $Model = $OneCar;

# drop everything after the Year including the first space char
    $Year =~ s/\s.*//;

# drop the year and the first space char
    $Make =~ s/\d*\s*//;
# drop everything after the Make including the first space char
    $Make =~ s/\s.*//;

# drop the year and the first space char, same as with $Make
    $Model =~ s/\d*\s//;
# drop everything up to and including the first space char
    $Model =~ s/\w*\s//;

    print "$Year\t\t$Make\t\t$Model\n";
}
[download]