Highest Mileage Cars: 22 Million-Mile Cars That Prove Reliability Isn't Just A Toyota Thing

Highest Mileage Cars: 22 Million-Mile Cars That Prove Reliability Isn't Just A Toyota Thing

Million-mile cars can come from any brand. Here are some of the most iconic.

Most people would consider 100,000 miles to be a pretty respectable mileage for any car, and a vehicle with 200,000 miles on it is a very high-mileage outlier. However, some dedicated owners have taken their cars and trucks far beyond that point, with a handful of examples breaking the million-mile mark. We’ve spoken about the most reliable cars and most reliable engines before, but nothing proves that reliability like reaching seven-figure mileage and still going strong.

Let’s take a look at some of the highest-mileage vehicles in the world, many of which can be found on US soil:

This Saab is a rare beast, with only 7,500 examples of this model being sold in the US. Owner Peter Gilbert drove his 900 for over a million miles before donating it to the Wisconsin Automotive Museum in 2006. The car still has its original engine; Gilbert attributes its long life to regular maintenance and the use of synthetic oil.

Owned by the Mobil Oil Company, this E30 BMW 3 Series has spent its entire life as a test vehicle for synthetic oil and Mobil unleaded gasoline, accumulating a total of over a million miles only four years after it was built. After being run in on the road, Mobil stuck it on a dyno for four years straight, servicing at the prescribed intervals and performing all necessary maintenance as per BMW’s maintenance schedule. It was run day and night in a variety of simulations, and after it reached a million miles, the engine was stripped down and evaluated to see how it had held up on Mobil1 synthetic oil. It performed so well that the test earned Mobil the title of BMW’s official motor oil.

Master mechanic and former vehicle inspector Joe LoCicero was celebrated by Honda with a parade in Saco, Maine when his Accord racked up over a million miles on the odometer. The car’s longevity is the result of an obsessive maintenance regime and one engine rebuild carried out by LoCicero himself.

This Lexus is a very famous high-mileage vehicle. Owned by automotive journalist Matt Farah, it already had nearly 900,000 miles on the clock when he bought it with the intention of taking it to seven figures. Farah let other automotive journalists drive the car to achieve this as a collaborative effort.

Another vehicle that broke the million-mile mark is Hugh and Tammy Pennington’s Silverado 3500HD, which was mainly used for their business delivering camping trailers. Incredibly, this result was achieved with no major maintenance, just regular oil changes and washing to prevent rust after driving on salty roads or in snow.

Vic Sheppard bought his new Toyota Tundra in 2007 and racked up around 125,000 miles a year on long road trips across the country, eventually hitting a million miles and being rewarded with a brand new Tundra after Toyota learned of his achievement via his local dealership. When Toyota developed the new Tundra, it pulled apart Sheppard’s old one to find out where it could be improved.

In early 2020, Chicago delivery driver Brian Murphy broke the million-mile mark in his 2007 Nissan Frontier (interestingly, without using GPS navigation to drive a single one of these miles). After achieving this milestone, Murphy simply kept driving the truck – a testament to the Frontier’s build quality. The original clutch even lasted 801,000 and the timing chain was replaced at 700,000 miles, purely as a preventative measure. To reward him, Nissan gave him a brand new 2020 model with a newly updated engine so he could keep on trucking for another million miles.

Farrah Haines is a delivery driver for auto parts in Kansas, and because of her occupation, she drives around 200,000 miles per year in her Hyundai Elantra. After hitting the million-mile mark in 2018, she was given a personalized gold emblem by Hyundai to stick on the odometer (which only goes to 999,999). Hyundai went one step further, gifting her a new 2019 Elantra.

In 2016, at the southernmost tip of Africa, 74-year-old Gerhard du Toit reached the milestone of 1.7 million kilometers (1.05 million miles) in his 1997 Isuzu KB single-cab pickup truck. Affectionately nicknamed Roadrunner, the truck was purchased by du Toit from his brother shortly after his retirement, at which point it had only 4,350 miles on the clock. Post-retirement, he set up a delivery business, which resulted in racking up a million miles over 15 years. Du Toit claimed that the truck had never had a major issue but made sure to service it every 6,000 miles.

It’s unknown how many more miles the truck has racked up by now.

When Guy Newmark received a Porsche 356C from his father as a graduation present in the mid-1960s, he couldn’t possibly imagine he would still be driving it 50 years later. And yet, thanks to regular servicing and a thwarted theft attempt, the blue Porsche (nicknamed Blu) is still going strong, being daily driven, too. Newmark is obsessive over maintenance, with services every 3,000 miles.

When Ben Clopot bought this 250SE, it already had around 1.1 million miles on the clock, thanks to the efforts of the family who owned it before him (the original owner accumulated 877,000 miles, and after his death, the family drove a further 300,000). Clopot brought it over the line for 1.2 million miles in 2014.

This Accord is somewhat of a family heirloom; the original owner left it to his son, who continued to use it as a daily driver until it joined the million-mile club. Its last known mileage is 1.16 million miles: a testament to the legendary reliability of 90s Hondas.

Lists of million-mile cars are expected to feature combustion cars, but seldom would anyone think an electric vehicle is capable of such, given the fuss around battery degradation. But Hansjerg von Gemmingen-Hornberg from Germany has dismissed this notion with his 1.18-million-mile Model S.

But it hasn’t been plain sailing, and the 2014 model has undergone 13 electric motor swaps (under warranty) and three battery replacements. His extensive use of the Model S has yielded some positive developments, though, with upgrades from the EV Clinic in Croatia to make the newest motors more reliable than the factory items. Von Gemmingen-Hornberg is also pretty harsh on his Model S, and in November last year, he took his car dune bashing just for the fun of it.

Phil Marsella bought his Ford F-250 to use as a work truck with his business, and by the end of 2010, he had managed to rack up over a million miles (1.2 million, to be specific). Granted, it did take two new engines to get to that point, but a pretty impressive result nonetheless. The replacement engine was a used one with 100,000 miles on it that proved to be even more reliable than the original, but Marsella looked after it, with services every 6,000-7,000 miles.

Chet Belisle’s Lincoln Towncar made an appearance on TV in 2009 after hitting 1.3 million miles thanks to a rigorous maintenance schedule and careful choice of replacement parts. The mighty Towncar has transported Belisle across the country from his home in Kansas for forty years without a single breakdown.

Driving from Green Bay, Wisconsin to Chicago, Illinois every day, steak and seafood delivery driver Frank Oresnik had quite an impressive commute. His beloved Chevrolet Silverado, nicknamed “Old Girl,” proved itself to be up to the job, hitting one million miles while appearing on TV and racking up a total of 1.3 million miles. That was in 2008, and shortly after reaching the latter milestone, Oresnik put the truck up for sale on eBay. The engine was never changed, but the truck went through five transmissions, four radiators, and three gas tanks.

Californian Albert Klein bought his Beetle in 1966 for $1,900 and managed to drive it for over one and a half million miles over the course of the next three decades. However, this achievement did not come with a few metaphorical bumps in the road: the Beetle has had seven new engines and three new transmissions throughout its life. That was before it hit a million miles in 1987, after which he was given a brand new VW Fox by the dealerships he bought the Beetle from in Pasadena.

The latest update on it was 1.6 million miles as of 1994, after which it went into a museum.

Joseph Vaillancourt’s Plymouth Fury was driven as a taxi for most of its life and very nearly earned itself a place on the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest mileage car on earth (in 1999). But just 264 km/164 miles short of his goal, the automotive gods had other plans, and the Fury was totaled in an accident.

This incredible Volvo spent its life as a fleet vehicle for Finnish logistics company SE Makinen, accumulating a total of 1,630,000 miles. It replaced a Volvo 145 that had accrued 600,000 miles and had a relatively trouble-free life, although it had its engine replaced three times, first at 400,000 miles, then after another 620,000 miles, and finally after a further 466,000 miles. The gearbox survived 1.24 million miles before being refurbished.

There has been more than just one Dodge Ram 2500 to reach a million miles, but the highest-mileage one of all belongs to Donald Jensen, or at least as recently as 2021 it still did. Jensen had racked up 1.75 million miles, with the truck’s Cummins diesel engine being central to its reliability. Used as a work truck but also as a personal vehicle, the Ram 2500 was used to transport RVs from Indiana to 48 US states and 10 Canadian provinces. While several cars on this list have had engines replaced, this one hasn’t, but the instrument cluster has been replaced twice, first at 533,752 miles, and again after another 626,369 miles.

Taxi driver Gregorios Sachinidis racked up an astonishing 2,850,000 miles on his Mercedes 240D in 2004, making it the longest-running vehicle in Mercedes’ history. After his achievement was verified by the brand, he was rewarded with a new C-Class, while the 240D was preserved in Mercedes’ own museum.

Retired science teacher Irving “Irv” Gordon bought his Volvo P1800 in 1966 for $4,150 (a year’s salary for him at the time) and has achieved a Guinness World Record for the highest mileage on a personal car by racking up over three million miles, driving an average of 100,000 miles per year by visiting numerous car shows across the US. The car has since passed 3.2 million miles.