By Colby Buchanan
I saw this on Reddit today and it definitely gave me a good laugh. As we finish up our 5th week (I think?) week of quarantine it’s hard to know when it’s going to end. And for some reason, the Crown Vic is the same way. Although you don’t see nearly as many of them as police cars anymore, the fact that you see them at all is crazy.
In fact, one of my best friends has one in this forest green and I think it has something like 250k miles on it. When I asked him why he doesn’t get something new he says, “I got it for dirt cheap and it doesn’t really break so I’m driving it ’til it stops working.” I don’t know if I would say the same thing but hey, who am I to judge?
Over 500,000 miles says otherwise
byu/FrizzVictor incarmemes
Last Call indicates the end of Hooniverse’s broadcast day. It’s meant to be an open forum for anyone and anything. Thread jacking is not only accepted, but it’s also encouraged.
Jeff Glucker
The only one that I could think of that was older than this was the E series. Which were produced from 1899 next to Ford’s Quadricycle and are still being produced for commercial work.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7dffa08aa017bf5695376fc20f0f760b24e8e7af488ae94c8ca1aebd5b005587.jpg
The Econoline beats what I was thinking of, but the Chevy Express has been going since ’96, and is still in full production.
If we go defunct, there’s some great choices (mostly British or ex-British). LR Defender, various Morgans, the Hindustan Ambassador.
The Hindustan reminded me that are a couple motorcycles that could also be added to this list as well like the Ural and the, ack… the Brit one being built in India. The Morgan is a good one though it’s had almost as many updates as the Econoline.
Yes, Royal Enfield! Again, lots of updates (fuel injection in the past decade), but sticking around.
Ah don’t let Morgan fool you, the unbroken line isn’t quite as unbroken as they’d like you to think with the old plus 4. It was *technically* the same car for ages until the properly new one (that looks like the old one), but given the parts bin + plus what we could find at the local branch of Halfords approach to building their cars, to say they’re pretty much the same since the 30s is a wee stretch of the truth.
Grandfather’s
axeMorgan, or perhaps more accurately, ‘The Morgan of Theseus’.“ Theseus owned a ship and the ship was entirely made of wood. Every time a piece of the ship needed replacing it was replaced with a metal part. This went on for years until eventually it was entirely made of metal. Is the metal ship of Theseus the same ship as the wooden ship of Theseus?”
Grandfather’s
axeMorgan, or perhaps more accurately, ‘The Morgan of Theseus’.“ Theseus owned a ship and the ship was entirely made of wood. Every time a piece of the ship needed replacing it was replaced with a metal part. This went on for years until eventually it was entirely made of metal. Is the metal ship of Theseus the same ship as the wooden ship of Theseus?”
Grandfather’s
axeMorgan, or perhaps more accurately, ‘The Morgan of Theseus’.“ Theseus owned a ship and the ship was entirely made of wood. Every time a piece of the ship needed replacing it was replaced with a metal part. This went on for years until eventually it was entirely made of metal. Is the metal ship of Theseus the same ship as the wooden ship of Theseus?”
Grandfather’s
axeMorgan, or perhaps more accurately, ‘The Morgan of Theseus’.“ Theseus owned a ship and the ship was entirely made of wood. Every time a piece of the ship needed replacing it was replaced with a metal part. This went on for years until eventually it was entirely made of metal. Is the metal ship of Theseus the same ship as the wooden ship of Theseus?”
The British have their own similar ancient legend tp the ship of Theseus, it’s called “Triggers Broom” 😉
The Plus 8 had something like a 40 year run with relatively minor changes though, right?
..lots of minor changes, pretty much from car to car. 😉
For non-updated major vehicle parts though, there’s Chevy/GMC’s full-size pickup truck step-side bed: completely unchanged from 1954 through 1987 (yes, they bolted year-appropriate fenders on, but the bed itself wasn’t updated). Guess they really wanted their money’s worth!
/useless trivia
Is any trivia really useless? I mean it might come in useful in a bar trivia night or in Final Jeopardy.
So…useless trivia that might make you a millionaire some day!
The original post implies longevity of the vehicle, not longevity of the production run though (“over 500,000 miles”). Are Morgans particularly noted for being unkillable?
Fair enough, I suppose I’m looking at the meme itself, where the never-ending aspect is a little more nebulous. At best, they’re probably less unkillable and more unkilled because they see so little use (and the base components are stout and simple enough).
I should probably retract it though in place of the non-British Volvo 240.
If we’re talking motorcycles my Suzuki DR200 is pretty much the same as the 1996 model and my 2002 HD Sportster, although the current Sportster has been said to be America’s longest production vehicle, is faithful to the original but when you check the details is very different. Why am I babeling? Home detention. But if you’re talking about vehicles that are kept on the road and in service in my neck of the woods it’s old right hand drive Subarus used by contract mail carriers. They never seem to die. But my favorite is the panther Fords…I want one and after the plague will seek one out.
I’m going to vote for the 2004-2009 2nd generation Prius as another long lived vehicle. Still common on the roads and routinely rack up high mileage. They see taxi duty in many places and 300K – 400K is not uncommon. In fact, a not uncommon complaint on Priuschat is that the early models had an odometer that stopped counting at 299K. That this is a known issue is remarkable in itself.
Ford Falcon is in the same boat. Just checked and there is a 2011 taxi for sale now with 450k miles