Highest Known Mileage

[Colin Morgan]

Hi,

I don't want to cause controversary, but whose car has done the highest known mileage, please?

Colin

[goodwoodweirdo]

2015 VW touran 375.000 kms but I'm guessing you want Austin 7 mileage :-)

[Mike Costigan]

The trouble is early cars had speedos that only recorded up to 10,000 miles, and even the last cars only recorded up to 100,000 miles, so any high-mileage claims can only be anecdotal. Back in the late 1960s there were several of us doing 20,000 miles per year - Tony Griffiths and John Fitch were two such - so it's entirely possible that a car has covered several hundred thousand miles, but we didn't keep track at the time, and also had no idea of the mileages already done before the cars came into our possession.

My grandfather was very proud when the Big Seven that he had owned from new clocked up 100,000 miles around 1970, but that car had been used sparingly, often laid up through the winter-time. There must be many survivors that clocked up significantly higher mileages, probably through several owners, so no real record was kept.


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[Colin Morgan]

Whilst it is not possible to know the complete mileage covered by most cars, there must be some where there is a record of high mileage - perhaps from diary entries from the 1940s and 1950s, and/or MOTs since 1960 - or a car that has been in one family for a long time?

Most cars aren't doing many miles these days. Talking with someone from the motor trade the other day, he said about my Ruby - 'At a thousand miles per year, it will last forever...'

[Peter Naulls]

Somewhere I have a period article about a Big Seven that was used for postal deliveries in Australia. I seem to remember it covered in excess of 300000 miles in four years without a rebuild. I can't seem to find the article.

[Ian Williams]

Didn't we have a long discussion about all of this a few years ago and come to the conclusion that there are one or two active members who have covered may 100's of thousand of known miles. I think the Dunford's would probably be contender's for the OP

[Denis Sweeney]

My Brother Peter has covered more than 100,000 miles in his Big Seven since his rebuild, very impressive.
My modern hasn’t done 16000 in four years??

[Colin Morgan]

Yes, a chat a while back was inconclusive...

https://pub25.bravenet.com/forum/static/...3&cmd=show

[Colin Morgan]

This might be one contender:


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https://austinsevenfriends.co.uk/Bruce/l...ster_1.htm


Thinking about this further - perhaps it is not surprising that the cars with the most mileage 'attached' to them are Vintage? Those from the mid- to late-thirties were often laid up during the war, then run with petrol rationing in force, and then overtaken by technical developments during the 1950s, followed by the MOT coming along in 1960. Also, there reached a point in the 1950s where Sevens were common and changing hands for little money, so there was small incentive to keep high mileage cars on the road or stash them away for posterity.