I would use a regex instead of split:

my($type,$make,$color)=$line=~/"([^"]*)"/g;
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Or, if you want to have quotes escaped with a backslash:

my($type,$make,$color)=$line=~/"((?:[^"\\]*|\\"?)*)"/g;
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BTW: split(); alone can be used for the return list if assigned to @_ implicitly. The behaviour is deprecated though...