This is a story that will change your perception of reliability in a car. A man from Long Island called Irv Gordon (you probably remember him from a story we wrote a while ago) will soon reach 3,000,000 miles (4,828,032 km) in the same car, a 1966 Volvo P1800.
Gordon bought the car new in 1966 and the red Volvo has been his companion ever since. “It’s not about getting to the three million miles; it’s about the trips that got me to the three million miles,” Gordon explains. “I never had a goal to get to one million, to two million. I just enjoyed driving and experiencing life through my Volvo,” he added.
You probably wonder by now how did he drive so much, as a simple calculation reveals that he drove more than 100,000 kilometers each year in order to get to more than 4,800,000 km in 47 years.
Well, Gordon says the best way to visit America is by car. “I challenge everyone to go out and see as much as possible. Find your own journey and reason to believe because you only have one life to live. No matter how many roads I’ve been on, there’s always one I haven’t taken. That’s what makes it exciting,” the 73-year-old retired science teacher from Patchogue, N.Y., says.
However, it was not only his love for driving across the country that made the Volvo rack up so many miles, but also the fact that he had a 125-mile (201 km) round-trip daily commute.
Gordon says the car lasted so long as he took it to the same certified Volvo technician for more than 15 years. He plans to reach three million miles in Alaska this September, as the northernmost state is one of two U.S. states he has never visited. You can follow his adventures on 3MillionReasons.com.
By Dan Mihalascu
PHOTO GALLERY
