Long lasting cars

[Dyslexic Viking]

I have a fascination with cars/vehicles that are daily drivers or in regular use for a long time and I mean a really long time. Those that exceed their life expectancy by many decades and still provide reliable service after all these years.

We had a good example in the family. From the end of the 1990s until the early 2000s, my uncle had a 1962 Volvo PV 544 as his only car and daily transport. When this one was retired, it had over 700,000 km on it and over 40 years in use, but still provided reliable service right up to the end, where the last summer in use it was driven across Norway with only a faulty windscreen wiper as the only problem. This was then restored and is still alive but is now retired.

In Norway in the 1960s, there were still many American cars from the 1930s in use and the Ford model A was and is still is common here. 

And here is a short bit of the history of one of Norway's many Ford model A which was still in use in the 1960s. Photo taken in 2010.

This was in regular use from 1928 until well into the 1960s when it was parked in a barn and then taken out again 40+ years later. During its years as a normal car it has been crashed a few times experienced 5 years of war and been driven into a lake and lost a rear wheel at high speed and used for everything from wedding car to transporting livestock, and it is still here and still going.

Which is impressive.

Do any of you know of similar stories?

[Matty]

We had a transit pickup that we put three hundred odd thousand miles on. To be fair about the only original bits left were the seats and the gear stick by the time it died so probably doesn't count.

[Timewaster]

There was a lovely local chap who was a mechanic at the local Austin dealer and used a baby blue Austin A35 estate every day. It was only a few years old when he bought it.

When the dealer closed and became a classic specialist, he could be found in their workshop, smoking a cherute, lead loading a join on a Rover P4. This was about 1995.

I haven't seen him or the car for a few years. 

Given that he would probably be well into his 90s by now, it is probably not good news.

 

[bigstraight6]

Back in the 1970’s there was a local Doctor who daily drove a 1930’s Riley saloon which made a rare sight even back then, and it made a lasting impression on me as I’ve always run older vehicles as a preference.

[Dyslexic Viking]

The road salting here and the older generations disappearing mean that there are fewer and fewer older cars on the road here. Was an Opel Kadett from the 1970s that was in use here all year until recently then disappeared then appeared for sale and it was terminaly rotten the salt had killed it. And that's why I don't want to drive older cars all year which is sad.

I remember that around 15 years ago, a Swedish classic car magazine had a running post across several magazines where readers could submit photos of Volvo Amazons that were still in daily use and there were many. But there are probably not many left now in such use, if any.

[Split_Pin]

There's a farmer around my area who still runs around in a 1989 Mercedes 190. 

As above, in Scotland they salt the roads 9 months of the year, which isn't necessary a lot of the time. This means a lot.of cars have quite short lives.

[bigstraight6]

3 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

There's a farmer around my area who still runs around in a 1989 Mercedes 190. 

As above, in Scotland they salt the roads 9 months of the year, which isn't necessary a lot of the time. This means a lot.of cars have quite short lives.

We are fortunate down in the Westcountry where the winters are generally not harsh hence road salting only happens for a few weeks most years which helps keeping older daily drivers smoking on.

[Dyslexic Viking]

6 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

There's a farmer around my area who still runs around in a 1989 Mercedes 190. 

It's strange I don't think of this as unusual, but then I realize that we are in 2022, so the car is 33 years old now. 

[jon.k]

I know someone who runs his business with a Fordson Dexta, a Fordson Major, a SIII Landrover and runs around in a 1991 polo! (He does also have a newer tipper van). He's been using them for years and years.

A few tippers ago he said he used a "Tudor" van which was some kind of rebadged Dacia. I'd not heard of them before but it sounds like peak autoshite.

[hairnet]

early sinker 94 xantia old git bought at 3 years old with 60k on it

had till 07=08 sold to someone on our road at the time that did retro rides

lasted till 2018 had 160k on it

 

[Rust Collector]

Just the other day I parked behind a 2CV outside Seaford Morrisons. There were two ladies speaking to an elderly lady on the pavement as I got out the car. They asked me about my car (I was in the Insight) and as I told them what it was the elderly lady got in the 2CV. I mentioned the 2CV was more interesting than my car, and they told me that the elderly lady was their mum and she had owned the 2CV from either new or nearly new (my memory is crap). I was quite impressed that a lady who must easily have been in her 80’s was still running a car like that, especially down here by the sea. I’ve seen the car a few times locally since, I always smile when I see it now. It’s cream and green, with the matching striped fabric roof that makes it look like a vegetable stall at a market 😅 assuming some kind of petrol substitute is still available, I hope I’m like that when I’m older.

[Richard_FM]

One of my Mum's friends used to have a 2CV, which she said was fun to drive until the roof started leaking!

[eddyramrod]

41 minutes ago, jon.k said:

 a "Tudor" van which was some kind of rebadged Dacia. I'd not heard of them before but it sounds like peak autoshite.

"Tudor" means this to me, as I'm sure that's a name they were sold under on the UK market...

[Richard_FM]

50 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

There's a farmer around my area who still runs around in a 1989 Mercedes 190. 

As above, in Scotland they salt the roads 9 months of the year, which isn't necessary a lot of the time. This means a lot.of cars have quite short lives.

On some of the smaller Scottish islands there aren't any MOT test centres so cars are allowed to go untested as long as they stay on the island, which probably means some older cars are used until something major goes wrong.

[eddyramrod]

54 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

There's a farmer around my area who still runs around in a 1989 Mercedes 190. 

When I arrived in Barrow ten years ago I was amazed to find an immaculate 1987 190 being used as a taxi!  The owner died a couple of years ago and I haven't seen the car for a while.

[sheffcortinacentre]

There was someone ( a doctor I think) daily drove a flat rad  Morgan through the 80's& 90's possibly still does to the Sheffield northern general hospital .

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

Just the other day I parked behind a 2CV outside Seaford Morrisons. There were two ladies speaking to an elderly lady on the pavement as I got out the car. They asked me about my car (I was in the Insight) and as I told them what it was the elderly lady got in the 2CV. I mentioned the 2CV was more interesting than my car, and they told me that the elderly lady was their mum and she had owned the 2CV from either new or nearly new (my memory is crap). I was quite impressed that a lady who must easily have been in her 80’s was still running a car like that, especially down here by the sea. I’ve seen the car a few times locally since, I always smile when I see it now. It’s cream and green, with the matching striped fabric roof that makes it look like a vegetable stall at a market 😅 assuming some kind of petrol substitute is still available, I hope I’m like that when I’m older.

Yea, Jermyns. Took over a site near here. May* remember moar tommoz

 

 

 

[vulgalour]

First owner bought it in '88 and just used it as a car until a couple of years ago, racking up almost 180,000 miles in the process.  It was off the road briefly for @Six-cylinder to rescue it from the usual fate, and get it through a fresh MoT, and then I bought it and decided to continue the tradition of just using it as a car.  Looking through its MoT history, the longest period of time this has been off the road is probably when I was welding new arches on it recently, after which it was MoT and pressed back into daily duties.  It's never gone into retirement, it now lives outdoors all year round and is used in all weathers.  It has an easy life with me, I don't drive great distances, though I do tend to find a reason to give it some exercise almost every day.

 

As late as 2019 when I was still living up north, there was an elderly local who piloted a fabulous old Vauxhall Victor that was bought at auction in the 1980s and just kept going so they never bothered to replace it.  I imagine she's likely still cruising about in it today.

 

[Spiny Norman]

They can either be really well built in the first place and owned by a type of person who looks after their cars (Plenty of 80s Volvos, Saabs and Mercs still on the road) or they can be really cheap to run and easy to mend with good parts supply which explains the Moggy Minors I saw being used as daily transport round here up until a few years ago.

[LightBulbFun]

4 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

I have a fascination with cars/vehicles that are daily drivers or in regular use for a long time and I mean a really long time. Those that exceed their life expectancy by many decades and still provide reliable service after all these years.

for me it has to be the Electric Stanley Argson, I really love the way they just kept soldiering on 

the last one of these of a production run of about 1900~ rolled off the line in 1955, they where given a 7 year lifespan by the Ministry

yet even in the 1980's about 50 of them where still plodding along at 12Mph!, with a few surviving into the 1990's and even at least 1 that made it all the way to the end of the scheme in 2003!

Id love to know how many sets of traction batteries these long survivors  went through!

they clung on through both by being built like a brick shit-house, and by virtue of filling in their niche very well and thus having a small band of very dedicated users who just refused to let the Ministry upgrade them to anything newer/larger

Id love to find a photograph of one of these properly mingling in 1980's/1990's traffic can you imagine how incongruous it would of looked even back then? hard to imagine it but they did!

[WillCarter]

Old Boy at work runs this as one of his dailies, the other two being an original Range Rover and a Honda C90. Got a Land Rover 200 TDi under the bonnet and seems to chug along nicely.

[jon.k]

8 hours ago, eddyramrod said:

"Tudor" means this to me, as I'm sure that's a name they were sold under on the UK market...

 

[Dyslexic Viking]

Thanks everyone, this thread turned out better than I had hoped. Some great cars/vehicles and stories here.

[sierraman]

What about that Mk5 Cortina Estate out Somercoates way with the arse falling off it? 

[goosey]

A friend of my dads is still daily driving a mk1 escort estate (complete with rad muff) that he bought as his first car in the early 70s. The car does the job so he has no interest in replacing it - although he does have a spare mk1 escort estate in the garage just in case 

[Skcat]

The montego on the left has a the Perkins diesel engine. I think its at around 1.25 million miles, orginal motor and gearbox too! If I remember correctly one of the pistons needed replacing at around 800k.

If you ever attend any BL events in the Midlands or up north you will have a good chance of seeing it, the owner is trying to put as many miles on it as possible. My petrol o series (the right one) only had 107k on the clock.

 

Most cars will last if you give them the love they need and be proactive!

[barefoot]

4 minutes ago, Skcat said:

Most cars will last if you give them the love they need and be proactive!

I agree, they'll last just as long as you keep spending money on them.

We have a 944S which we bought in 1994 with 49,000 miles. It was used as a daily until the beginning of Covid & has now covered >300, 000 miles, it's been nicely restored, covered few miles since & 'replaced' with a Rover 75. Similarly our T2 was bought in 1996 and used daily until I had to stump up over £700 for a replacement sliding door. It continues to be used for holiday & festivals but has been replaced as regular transport by my '87 Scirocco.

[Conan]

My Toyota Corona Liftback got 260,000 odd miles on it in 43 years. Apparently it was previous owner's only car for 30+ years which got sold only because he stopped driving.

I can understand why. It's dependable car. Perhaps not a surprise since it is a Toyota. I think currently is the longest it's been off the road (getting some major work done, it's been nearly 2 months) but hopefully it'll be back in regular use very soon.

Most of it's brethrens are long dead due to rot.

[artdjones]

An article I read in the AA's Drive magazine in the 1970s has always stuck in my mind. It was about a lady teacher who had bought a new Austin Lichfield in 1934 or 5 and was still running it. They had a photo of her in front of the school with her pupils. 

[eddyramrod]

2 hours ago, Skcat said:

The montego on the left has a the Perkins diesel engine. I think its at around 1.25 million miles, orginal motor and gearbox too! If I remember correctly one of the pistons needed replacing at around 800k.

If you ever attend any BL events in the Midlands or up north you will have a good chance of seeing it, the owner is trying to put as many miles on it as possible. My petrol o series (the right one) only had 107k on the clock.

 

Most cars will last if you give them the love they need and be proactive!

I saw that diesel at the Lakeland Motor Museum at the beginning of October.  It does look like it's done every one of those miles!  (Like I've got room to talk...)  Tailgate window is starred now, I'm hoping he has a replacement handy.  For contrast, there was a beautiful 2.0 VdP saloon too.