One careful owner: The man who drove 3.2 million miles in a Volvo

Irv Gordon died five years ago in November. But he still holds the world record for the most miles driven in a single car, clocking more than 3.2 million in a Volvo P1800.

Gordon, then a teacher living in Long Island, New York, bought the cherry red coupé on Friday 30 June 1966, for $4,150, then the equivalent of a year’s salary. By the following Monday, he brought it back to the dealer for its first service – having clocked up 1,500 miles over the weekend.

He didn’t look back – Gordon genuinely loved driving his car. Combining a long daily commute with a penchant for epic roadtrips at the weekend, he’d racked up a million miles by 1987. In 2002 he hit 2 million miles and in 2013 notched 3 million miles in the Kenai Peninsula, near Anchorage in Alaska (which is where he’s pictured above).

Gordon had been given a new 780 coupé by Volvo when he hit a million miles back in 1987. He put 450,000 miles on the clock before selling it. When the P1800’s odometer rolled over to 3 million, Volvo Car North America celebrated the milestone by giving Gordon a new XC60.

But he still kept driving the P1800, clocking up another 250,000 miles over the next five years, with the record-breaking classic in high demand at car shows around the world.

After a show in the UK, Gordon drove the P1800 to Sweden, to see where his P1800 had been made. And while he didn’t bring the car to Australia, he was invited to drive the oldest Volvo in the country from one end to the other.

“I got to drive across the outback, see all the kangaroos, emus,” said Gordon. ”I just had such a great time, all because I bought this car.”

The car did have two engine rebuilds over the years. But it’s still the original engine and other than that, Gordon did the maintenance largely himself. Speaking in 2018, he said it had “never broken down, never failed to start and always takes me where I want to go … Ice, snow, blizzards… I’ve been in conditions you wouldn’t believe – and the car has always got me through it without any problems.”

He added that it had never really needed any repairs. Just elbow grease and attentive maintenance. He urged all owners to read the handbook and do the basics properly.

“I expect I will still be driving the car until there is nothing left of me,” said Gordon. “It’s in better shape than me … The car will still be around.”

Gordon passed mid-November 2018. The odometer read 3,260,257 miles.

Now under Volvo ownership, it is still being carefully driven. Which is probably what Gordon – who once joked that he’d offered to sell it back to Volvo for a dollar a mile, but was met with a polite refusal – would have wanted.