Monday Longevity Champion: Long Live The Leylands!

Last week there was a 2003 Toyota Tacoma with 430,000 miles on it.

I thought to myself, “Well this isn’t news. The quartet of GM/Ford trucks, Honda Cars, and Toyota everything is still cleaning up the charts. I won’t write about it this time”. So I waited…

This week the mileage champion out of 6,945 vehicles was a 1999 Toyota 4Runner with 344,400 miles. The enthusiasts among us are probably a bit Toyonda Chevorded out at this point. So this time, let’s focus on longevity.

This 1975 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham was once owned by Kermit the Frog. It was later purchased by the guy who invented Nickelodeon’s world famous slime and has most recently been on the set of the Incredible Hulk movie. Sad to say, the scene where it was scheduled to be destroyed was cut due to a protest engineered by our own TTAC alum Paul Niedermeyer.

So now it sits with 32,973 miles.

Old Caddies are rarely a surprise at the auctions. What did surprise me this time?

Try two 1977 MGB Roadsters available at the same auction. The miles are 47,959 and 49,048 respectively. Two more garage queens. These happened to reside in Nashville, Tennessee, Elvis country, where the rust is minimal, and the classiness of car decor is often somewhere between decals that portray the act of urinating and world famous truck testicles.

These sheepskin covers aren’t so bad. In fact, I think they would be the perfect fit for the marque that finished fourth and fifth on the longevity list.

These were followed by two Mercedes diesels. The second of which was a daily driver that displayed an impressive 308,052 miles. This is doubly impressive since old Mercedes odometer clusters have a tendency to give out at a certain point. I wouldn’t be surprised if this daily driver had more mileage than the Toyota 4Runner.

Finally, we have another surprise. A 1982 Fiat spider. Just showing the picture of this model with 137,939 miles would not do it justice. So I have arranged for a Youtube video to accompany your Monday morning.

The seats for this model were protected in a more conventional way than the MG twins.

There you have it. The six elder statesmen out of 6,985 vehicles. All of them still run… or at least limp along the road with loose bladders.