Vernon Walker of Walker's Radiator likes to drive his cars. This one is close to 240k mikes. He has a combined 350k between his 2 39 Johnson’s Rod Shop built cars. Now the 350k miles is stretched out between the 2 cars for 18 years. That’s an average of over 19k miles per year between them.
Pretty tricky, adding another digit to the odometer. I wonder how many miles Jay put on the 39 Chevy I sold him in 1995? It had close to 40 on it by me, and he drove it back and forth to Sturgis and Daytona (from Bisbee AZ) several times. I'd look at the odometer, but it's only 99k capable, and it probably broke a while back, anyways
Sold my last rod when it passed 140k. It needed a freshen up. Bought an almost new rod in 2012, passed 50k last year. Just enjoy going places although I am beginning to take less ambitious trips. Phil
Pretty common actually. They could be ordered that way for a while right from the factory. Fleet car odometer was what it was referred to. I had a Pontiac that I bought as a 2 year old car (85,000 K) that had the fleet odometer and when I sold it the odometer reading was 685,390 Kilometers.
For the amount of dough one would have to pay for a car built at Johnson's Rod shop, you should expect it to go for a quarter million miles... No, I am not jealous, just cheap..
Point well taken. If you consider the fact it’s mechanicals are all new, then it should be able to do that. AC, PS, ODtrans, updated suspension all help. Plus it’s a good size car. JHRS build or not, I would suggest that a large number of HAMBers can build one just as reliable.
Seems like I saw Vernon’s green car with body damage two different times last year. Rear pass fender once and front another. He drives em I know.
All my old cars where driven daily from when the snow stopped to when it started. Work, out n about, cottages, rain, shine whatever They where my sole means of transportation. they where driven daily when new. For the most part we improve them, Better tires, brakes, suspension, fluids etc etc. So why not drive em
Our '41 Ford Fordor had 119K miles on it in '94 when we bought it and 300K miles on it when we sold it in '16. We hit almost every state east of the Mississippi and it never failed to get us home. Every winter we went over it with a fine toothed comb to look for problems. Good maintenance and it's not too hard to do.
My off topic Chevelle I bought while in High School in 1978 clocked over 450,000 miles when I finally sold it in 2007. So yes, who said that?
My Morris was my daily for over 3 years. Back and forth to work several long trips were taken in it. I put over 200 k on a 64 Malibu wagon. Sold it and the guy drove it for years. My brother drove his O/T 67 el camino for 20 years winter, summer parked it on his construction site jobs. He figured he had about 500k on it He had replaced every body panel on it due to michigan salt. Finally swapped out the original 283 at 350,000. Finally the frame rusted in half.
Back in the 80s , I went to most of the NSRA and GOODGUYS car shows over a 2 year period . I noticed , people had more interest in cars that looked like they were drove on a regular bases more than cars that were trailer queens . They were interested in the details on how the car was built to make it a dependable daily driver .
You guy's make me look bad with only 55K on my Deuce roadster and 50K on my Woodie. I guess I need to plan more trips!!! Reminds me of one of the so called "top 25" from the Nats. A repeat winner only had 25 miles between wins. Congrats to all those who drive them!!
The Jalopy Journal
