Solar Car Wash

Graeme Hebley has been driving the same 1993 Toyota Corolla station wagon since 2000 — and has put over 2 million kilometers, roughly 1.2 million miles, on it without ever replacing the engine or transmission.

He drives almost 5,000 kilometers per week for his job as a newspaper delivery contractor, making the roughly four-hour round trip between Wellington and New Plymouth six days a week.

His mechanic John Sherman of Guthrie’s Auto Care, who has serviced the car every two weeks for over 20 years, confirmed the car still runs on its completely original engine and transmission.

“If I hadn’t worked on it, I wouldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it could do two million without something going wrong,” Sherman said.

Hebley credits the car’s longevity to a combination of Toyota’s engineering and his commitment to regular maintenance.

“That era of Toyota has such built-in reliability. But if it wasn’t so frequently serviced, it just wouldn’t work,” he said. ·

At 72 years old, Hebley has no plans to retire the car or himself: “As long as it keeps going, so will I"

In a culture obsessed with upgrading and replacing everything the moment something newer exists, this man and his Corolla are a reminder that consistency and care will always outlast novelty.

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1938 Buick Series 80 Roadmaster Opera Brougham (by Fernandez & Darrin)

Designed by Howard "Dutch" Darrin, the Opera Brougham body eliminated running boards for a cleaner lower-body profile, fitted front fenders that swept more deeply than the factory Roadmaster's contemporary styling, and set the windshield at a sharper rake.

Oversized rear-hinged doors gave access to a generously appointed rear compartment, and hand-painted faux caning across the rear doors added a European decorative accent.

The car was built for the 1938 Paris Auto Salon, intended both to catch the eye of show-goers and to demonstrate the coachbuilder's capabilities against European competition.

The chassis beneath was the 1938 Buick Series 80 Roadmaster, which that year adopted coil springs at all four corners in place of the prior rear semi-elliptic leaf springs, along with Buick's robust X-braced frame.

The engine featured revised combustion chambers and Buick's so-called turbulator pistons, raising compression to 6.5:1 and output to 141 horsepower.

The 320 CI Dynaflash overhead-valve inline eight was backed by a three-speed manual transmission, with hydraulic drum brakes at all four corners. The 133-inch wheelbase Roadmaster was the second-ranking car in the 1938 Buick range, below the longer-wheelbase Limited.