Count using VLOOKUP

I have a scenario that I've been scratching my head at for a while now. I will try to simplify the data so my question is easily understood.
I'm looking for a formula that can count the number of times a cell has a value in a separate file. For Example (where "-" means no price is available, "#N/A" means Car is not available, and all prices are in text format:

Book1.xlsx	Book2.xlsx
Cars	Prices
Acura	ten thousand
Honda	-
Ford	#N/A

I need a formula to put in a separate tab in Book1.xlsx that will check Book1 for cars, then check Book2.xlsx for the values if they are there. In this example the correct answer is 1, there is 1 car that contains a price, which is the Acura. Unfortunately combining the two books is not an option.

Why don't you put them all in the same sheet?

You can use this formula to count the entries in column A, excluding the heading, any "-" or any errors:

=COUNTIFS(A:A,"?*",A:A,"<>-")-1

If that formula is in C1 of Book2, for example, then you can just link directly to C1 from the other book(s).

Hope this helps.

Pete

I cannot combine them into the same sheet because Book2 contains a lot of garbage and a lot of important information, and these files change every month or so with new data. It would not be sustainable to dissect Book2 and add the information to Book1 every time we get a new one.

I'll give the COUNTIFS a try, I have to do it through Excel Online as 2016 Desktop doesn't support the new IFS functions.

Thanks