I buy or collect cars because they are cool or fast. I couldn’t care less about the mileage on a clock. If you keep them maintained and you didn’t cheap out and buy something disposable like a Hyundai Craptacular, you should be able to do over 200K miles on a vehicle no sweat.
That Hyundai would outlast a MOPAR or Gubmint Motors vehicle today.
1. I agree, that a car designed and built to be maintainable and to last, if well maintained, can last essentially forever. Imagine if cars were maintained like aircraft, where they would have true preventative maintenance. We would still have plenty of 1950’s cars on the street as daily drivers.
2. Take another look. Hyundai’s of 15 years ago were crap. The last 2-3 years of models are at or even beyond parity with the Japanese, who have rested on their laurels for a LONG time (particularly Honda). People still buying them are buying on inertia and habit.
3. On modern cars, the electronics are going to be killers for collectors of the future (if any) or for long-term ownership. LCD displays have a very finite lifetime, whether or not they are actually used, and they can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to tool.
By the way, my cars are 26 and 27 years old, respectively, one of which I drive every day. There is virtually nothing on either that I can’t repair, rebuild, or replace.