I've had a few since that one. I traded in my last car, a 9 year old Taurus wagon, at 313,255.7 miles! I had bought it a year before at 295,000 or so and it was literally hemorraging pieces and fluids as i pulled it in to the dealer's lot. They still gave me $745 for it, which was about a buck more than the tax on the new one, so i can guess why they chose that amount.
Here's the real funny part though. As i was signing the paperwork for my new car, the mechanics pushed the Taurus around back and removed the engine to put into another customer's car! They said the engine was still good for at least another 100,000 miles.
I was somewhat tempted by the restored 1930's era Model T that the dealer had in the showroom. It wouldn't have been very practical for winter driving up here in New York though. So i went with my sentimental attachment and drove off with a (almost brand new) demo 5-speed Escort sedan. This was a great cause for some eventual humor. When i showed it to my best friend Greg, his only comment was, "Kel!!!! No! You can't pick up chicks with a 4 door" as he shook his head sadly. I was later vindicated though as the girl he originally "picked up" ended up marrying me instead!
Anyway ... that should be enough hints. What was the car i taped going over the 100,000 mile mark?
It reminds me of the time my friend decided to trade in his Mazda RX7 for another car. The dealer just looked at the exterior and gave him top trade in value for it. Just before he left the lot with his newer car, the salesman stopped him and said,
"Hey. I just noticed two full cases of oil in the trunk. You may want to take it with you."
My friend smilled and said rather slily, "No thanks. You keep it. At two quarts a day, it should last you a week."
He then rolled up his window and got out of there quick.
By the way, he traded the car because he was tired of getting pulled over by the cops for the blue smoke. When he drove down the road the traffic behind him would part like the dead sea. We called this Old Testament relic, "blue thunder" because of the massive blue smoke and the big gapping hole in the muffler.
Pinto hatchback? Think I saw one on the history channel. Was that the car with the exploding gas tank? Ford estimated each death could cost them $200K or something, Something less for severly burned... Anyway, they decided it would be cheaper to not fix the gas tanks rather than redesign.
Well, nominally yes, but ... the factory tag inside the door listed an address in Ontario. Heck, my current Ford was made in Mexico. Of course, technically speaking, everything from Canada down to Chile* is "America" (named after Amerigo Vespucci who first mapped the western contients), so yes they were both American-made cars. If you want ot be sure your car was manufactured in the United States, you'll probably have to buy a Honda or a Saturn.
*Or are the Sandwich Islands farther south than Chile? If so, then Argentina would be farthest south.
Technically speaking Chile goes further south, but Argentina has the most southern city in the world - Ushuaia. I lived in the city just north of that for seven cold months and visited Ushuaia a couple of times. Beautiful place. It goes from glacial rock barren mountain passes to ocean water in a distance of a couple miles.
I forgot, Argentina "claims" to own part of antarctica. There is a peninsula that extends towards them and they claim a portion of it. The world considers the entire continent international territory though. Then again, they still think they own the Falkland Islands. I love the Argentine people, but they seem to have a lot of border line disputes :)