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Have Volvo, Will Travel (And Travel)
February 8, 2002
By AARON DONOVAN
EAST PATCHOGUE, N.Y. -- A light, steady rain was falling
and Irv Gordon's windshield had begun to fog, so he cracked
his side window to chase away the humidity. The light at
Montauk Highway turned green and he shifted into first, the
engine growling like new. He revved into second,
accelerating through a left turn in heavy traffic. "No
hesitations, no coughs, no sputters," he said. "I try to
keep it that way."
The radio played Billy Joel's "Scenes From an Italian
Restaurant." The odometer read 98,102 miles, a respectable
number but one that barely hinted at the journey Mr.
Gordon's shiny red 1966 Volvo has taken. In Mr. Gordon's
travels, the five-digit odometer has reset itself to zero
no fewer than 19 times.
If it had space for sixth and seventh digits, that odometer
- quite a famous one, in some circles - would have read
1,998,102 miles, according to service records kept at
Volvoville USA, the dealership in Massapequa, N.Y., where
Mr. Gordon bought his car in 1966 and has had it regularly
serviced since.
A retired middle school science teacher and divorced father
of two, Mr. Gordon, 61, plans to see five zeroes again next
month. He is carefully rationing his driving for six weeks
so the odometer will record its two-millionth mile on March
27, as he drives through Times Square as part of Volvo's
75th anniversary celebration.
To be sure, that will only be the car's two-millionth
recorded mile. His odometer cable has broken several times,
and he said that over the years he has driven thousands of
miles for which he received "no credit," meaning he is
probably well past two million already. Now he keeps a
spare odometer cable in the trunk. "I decided I'm not going
to lose any more miles," he explained.
He has also had his odometer serviced. "For me, that's part
of the maintenance, because the mileage is important to
me," he said. After he dropped off the odometer in
Mamaroneck last month, he had to drive back to his home
here, on Long Island, without one - losing credit for the
75-mile trip.
In a world where the average car is scrapped after nine
years, according to the AAA auto club, and where most
owners of vintage cars keep them in storage, saving them
for collectors' shows, parades and other special occasions,
Mr. Gordon's Volvo P1800S is an anomaly. It has been in
continual, heavy use for 36 years.
After all those years and some two million miles, Mr.
Gordon is practically part of his car, his car practically
part of him. "If I wasn't comfortable in this car, I
wouldn't have taken it all the places it's been," he said.
And it's been to a lot of places - to all of the
contiguous 48 states as well as 7 foreign countries:
Canada, Mexico and 5 nations in Europe. (A British Volvo
dealer flew the car across the Atlantic for an auto show.)
Mr. Gordon and his P1800S have survived two accidents: it
was rear-ended on the Long Island Expressway, and once, on
Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania, a tractor-trailer
accidentally latched onto the front bumper of the parked
Volvo, inadvertently towing it several miles - with Mr.
Gordon inside - until the truck went over a bump and the
car was dislodged.
The secret to automotive longevity is routine maintenance,
he said. "Most people don't take good care of their cars,"
he said, "but they expect a lot from them."
Mr. Gordon, however, takes meticulous care of his Volvo,
whose vanity license plates read "Milnmilr." The paint
gleams and all the moving parts are well lubricated. He has
the oil changed every 3,000 to 3,500 miles, the spark plugs
replaced every 20,000 ("it takes 15 minutes to do that")
and the carburetors rebuilt every 900,000 miles ("whether
they need it or not"). He inspects the brakes and
transmission himself, and periodically examines all the
hoses, belts and fluid levels. "I look for bubbles in hoses
and anything that is showing signs of deterioration," he
said. "It's easy."
The engine is spotless, like a show car's. Unlike a show
car, the Volvo is kept outside. His garage is for his two
"antique" cars, implying that the '66 has not achieved the
status of his '29 Packard and '49 Crosley.
When he was teaching, Mr. Gordon drove the Volvo 50,000 to
90,000 miles a year, he said, much of it on the L.I.E.,
with a round-trip commute of 100-plus miles to Roslyn
Middle School. Since retiring in 1996, he has increased his
driving to about 100,000 miles a year. Long- haul
interstate travel has become his full-time passion.
He first noticed that his mileage was higher than most when
his car reached 250,000 miles. It was 1971, and he wrote a
letter to Volvo. "This happened by accident, not by
design," he said, referring to the remarkably high mileage,
which is included in the Guinness Book of World Records as
"the highest certified mileage driven by the original owner
in noncommercial service."
In 1987, when Mr. Gordon's odometer ticked past one million
miles, Volvo, thrilled with the publicity, gave him a
brand-new red 780 coupe. In the 15 years since, he has
driven that car just 250,000 miles while his '66 P1800S has
gone another million.
How much of the car is original? The fenders and
headlights, destroyed in the accidents, have been replaced.
The engine was rebuilt in 1978, when the Volvo reached
680,000 miles. The fuel pump was replaced at 1.6 million.
That's about it.
As for whether the P1800S will make it to three million,
Mr. Gordon frames it as a question not for the car, but for
himself. "By then I'll be getting Social Security," he
said. "I'll be lucky to have my teeth and all my hair."
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