Irv Gordon has some advice for keeping your car running forever: Follow the factory service manual, replace worn or broken parts immediately and don't let anyone else drive your car.

Those simple rules have allowed Gordon to rack up a record-setting 2.8 million miles on his beloved Volvo P1800. We caught up with him last week, when, shortly after his 70th birthday, Gordon announced he hoped to reach 3 million by the time he turned 73. That feat will require him to drive an average of around 5,500 miles per month.

At that rate, he's in the driveway changing his own oil nearly every month and a half.

Gordon, a high school science teacher from Patchogue, New York, bought his bright red P1800 from Volvoville in Huntington, New York in June, 1966. Since then, he's tackled a 125-mile daily commute and countless cross-country road trips while racking up more miles in one car than anyone else. Ever. Volvo was so impressed it gave him a new car when the P1800, which is still serviced by the crew at Volvoville, rolled over its first million miles.

It was nice, but Gordon wasn't about to give up his beloved P1800. He bought it after two Chevrolet Corvairs let him down.

"I had nothing but trouble with the first. I was a brand new schoolteacher, I started teaching in ’62 and I needed a car that would take me 125 miles to work back and forth," he said. He'd traded a reliable but rusty 1952 Chevrolet for that Corvair Corsa, which was then traded for a sexier Corvair Spyder.

"I liked the way the car looked and the way it rode, but it broke down four blocks from the showroom the night I bought it," he said.

Though he'd been a loyal GM guy, a friend convinced him to check out a P1800 at Volvoville. He took it for a spin and was hooked. Problem was, after dealing with a pair of Corvairs, he was broke.

"It was just too much for me. I still owed money on my last Chevrolet," he said. "So I borrowed money from my Dad, traded in my Corvair and I bought a new car. That was on a Wednesday. That Friday night I picked the car up and I've had it ever since."

Though Gordon enjoyed the car's reliability and driving dynamics, he never thought it was anything special until the odometer clicked over 250,000 miles. Then he realized that nearly everything on the car was original.

"I wrote to Volvo," he said. "I had never had a single repair on the car. Maintenance, yes, but I never had to have a water pump removed or anything like that. They wrote me back with a very short letter that said, 'We’re happy you’re happy with the product, don’t forget to buckle up.'"

A similar letter came after Gordon wrote to Volvo when the car hit half a million miles. When the car finally doubled that figure and hit 1 million miles, Volvo took notice and gave him a smart-looking 780 coupe, which Gordon used for family vacations once his kids outgrew the back seat of the P1800. Gordon sold the 780 awhile back. It had just hit 450,000 miles.

In all the years Gordon's been driving the P1800, the engine has been rebuilt just twice. The first came after 680,000 miles, when Gordon insisted on a complete teardown even though the dealer said it wasn't needed.

"Like they said, there was nothing wrong," Gordon said. "I learned my lesson."

Gordon set the Guinness record back in 1998 when he passed 1.69 million miles. The car kept running like a Swiss watch until last year when he had some trouble getting over the Rockies. Another engine rebuild brought everything back in order.

"It was still running, but I was losing compression," he said. "I had one bearing that had some wear on it, and I had a cracked piston ring. I was losing oil pressure, but the cylinders and so on had very little wear on them."

He's also had some serious bodywork down after a trucking crew damaged his car while hauling it to Las Vegas for a Volvo display at the big Speciality Equipment Market Association trade show.

"I said after that, any time you guys want to borrow the car, you have to invite me and I’ll drive out," Gordon said.

That one case aside, Gordon hasn't let anyone else have any time behind the wheel.

"I don’t share my toys, I don’t want anyone else in there messing everything up on me," he said. "Most people wouldn’t even know how to start my car – it still has a manual choke. They don’t know the gear pattern."

Gordon leaves the major repairs to Volvoville but does the routine stuff himself.

"The tuneups on the car, I do – it only takes five minutes. I change the oil in my driveway. I can still fit under the car! Brakes I do myself," he said.

"I’m a firm believer in following the factory manual. Not the dealer manual – they’re out to make a few dollars – but the factory manual," Gordon said. "The people who built the car are the people who wrote the manual, and if they say things should be done in a certain amount of time, that’s how it should be done."

So that's how Irv drove so many miles, but why?

Within the first 30 seconds of our conversation, we realized that Gordon was one of those folks who truly loves his time spent behind the wheel. Driving is more than a way of getting from A to B. It's a hobby, it's how he relaxes. If we'd asked him to join us for dinner, we bet he would've taken us up on the offer simply because it would give him an excuse to drive a couple of hundred miles.

That 125-mile daily commute to work started after Gordon moved from Manhattan back to his native Long Island – despite an active social life in the city ("I was single then," he explained) – in part for greener pastures and bigger parking spaces. "In the summertime, where I live is where everyone else wants to be," he said. "Everything is so relaxed. I don’t have to look for a place to park."

In exchange for Manhattan, Gordon got a house with ocean breezes, a boat and a daily commute in his beloved P1800. "I actually looked forward to that drive every day. It gave me a chance to relax, get away from all the pressure."

"I like to drive," Irv said, laughing as he realized how much evidence he had to back up that statement. "Obviously, I like to drive. It’s my way of relaxing and getting away from it all."

We asked Gordon if he'll ever reach a point where the old Volvo gives up and simply won't start.

"No such thing, it’d never happen," he told us. "If it didn’t start, I’d find out why it didn’t start and fix it."

Photos: Volvo

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