Hi, I'm trying to comprehend ontology basics. Here's an example:

• car (class)
• 2009 VW CC (sub-class or instance?)
• My neighbor's 2009 VW CC (instance)

My issue is understanding what is "2009 VW CC" (as a car model). If you're making product model a sub-class in the ontology - all of a sudden your ontology becomes bloated with thousands of subclasses of a "car". That's redundant. At the same time we can't say "2009 VW CC" is an instance, at least it's not material instance of a class.

Does it make sense to distinguish between regular instances and material (distinct physical objects)?

At the other hand, if both are instances (of different nature so to say), then how can instance inherit properties / relations of a non-class?