Gregorios Sachinidis and his 2.85 Million-Mile Mercedes

A little while back I remember writing the article about Irv Gordon and his super accomplishment and thinking about another driver who had taken his car over 2.5 millions miles. At the time I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find anything.　Somehow, I was able to track down an article that had the info. The story is about ten years old now and that is why it is fading from collective memory. I felt it needed to be mentioned here, solely for the fact that it would be the number two entry in our Hall of Fame.

Way back in 1981, a Greek taxi driver named Gregorios Sachinidis bought a used 1976 Mercedes Benz 240D with 220, 000 miles on the odometer.  He used that car as a taxi until July 2004, when he donated it to the  Mercedes-Benz Museum Collection. Mercedes was gracious enough to offer him a C 200 CDI for his trouble.

It appears he used four engines in the car during his time as a drivers and rotated them. This is not too surprising given the sheer amount of miles driven. Still, even with engine replacement, the total distance of 2,858,307 Miles before it was retired.

I will admit that unlike most car on this blog,  this the car was used strictly in a business sense as  a fleet vehicle and taxi, and simply given the nature of the job was capable of racking up the miles,  but that doesn’t diminish from the fact that it was a Benz 240D and not some long haul semi that was designed for a million miles. This vehicle has earned its rest, and its place on the all-time list.