Two careful owners: The NSW florists with 2 million kms on their Volvo

In 1979, Russell and Gwen Den bought a Volvo 245GL. A few months ago, the odometer ticked over 2 million kilometres.

But it wasn’t quite the event they had been expecting.

The Dens bought the car new from a dealership in Liverpool. With seven children, they had settled on a Volvo for safety, says Russell. “That was the main reason. A van wouldn’t have done the job. We had a backwards-facing extension bench seat fitted in the back, two kids sat in that and we went from there.”

Over the next 45 years, they went a long, long way. Two million kilometres is the equivalent of driving around the world 25 times, or to the moon and back twice, and being halfway home for the third journey. But most of the miles were notched up in a corner of New South Wales, halfway between Campbelltown and Bowral.

Gwen still runs a florist – Chellowdeen – just off the Hume highway at Bargo.“I’m a very small member of the worldwide flower relay service of Interflora and the rural location sees my business servicing a radius of about 30 kilometres,” she says.

Russell, a retired maths teacher, helps with the deliveries.

Local hero

Racking up the miles over the decades, the car has become something of a local celebrity on the delivery circuit. After passing a million kilometres in 1998 the Dens put a sign on the back, updating it every 100,000kms. This year they have a new sticker. It reads ‘2 million kilometres. Still happy.’

“We get pulled up waiting for the lights – someone will come and knock on the window. ‘Is that true, has it really done that much?’ That happens nearly every day,” says Gwen.

“We’re probably saving Volvo an awful lot of money in advertising.”

But a smash at the lights also helped vindicate the Dens’ decision to buy the car in the first place.

“It had a test of its safety features,” says Russell. “A car came through a stop sign at speed and ploughed right into the side. It sent her flying up the embankment.

“An off-duty policewoman behind saw the whole thing. There was nobody else with my wife and the policewoman went to quickly open the passenger door. But Gwen said ‘no you don’t, these doors are supposed to work even after impact.’ And don’t you know, ‘click’ and it did.”

Suffice to say the Dens had the car repaired. It’s had several engine rebuilds and replacements. Russell said the current engine, converted to run on LPG, has 700,000kms on the clock. “It’s lasted the best.”

The 2 million mark

The car is still going strong. Russell took it back to the original Liverpool dealership for an annual service until the principal retired. In recent years, he’s handled most of the maintenance, though a friend, an ex-NRMA mechanic, comes and helps when needed.

“We have a small mixed farm, and that was a defining factor in choosing the car – economy and reliability as well as safety,” says Gwen. As well as the kids, she says the 245 “has carried just about every animal that would fit in it, or on the trailer. It’s done a lot of really hard work”.

It was on the farm that the car ticked over the 2 million kilometre mark. The Dens had wanted to be on their own property to record the “magic number,” so had carefully planned the day’s flower delivery route.

“We planned to drive around the back paddock to achieve the last three kilometres, when Russell rang to say that his tractor, while out cutting cow feed, had a flat tyre. So the dear old girl drove through the bush at the back and towed the feed-laden trailer back to where our little herd was waiting,” says Gwen.

“We were astounded at the coincidence and recorded it all on our phones as she came through the back gate – working as she had done all her life with the magic numbers on the clock, exactly 2 million.”

Keeping it in the family

The seven Den children are now all grown up.

“They all learned to drive in it – and we didn’t have to worry about them while they were learning,” says Russell. “So they started out in a Volvo and a couple of them still have Volvos today. We never had to worry about them driving. We knew they were safe – and that’s a very good feeling.”

The Den children once tried to buy their parents a new model, but the Dens declined. “We said thanks very much, but we’ll stick with the old girl,” which Gwen says remains in remarkably good condition, despite closing in on five decades of no-nonsense work.

As it neared the 2 million mark, “I decided to spruce it up a bit,” she says. “I went through it with a fine-tooth comb and there was absolutely no rust, not a spec. I was absolutely gob-smacked.”

Could the Dens make it to 3 million?

“We are both 83 years of age, still happily working taxpayers, but I doubt whether the good Lord would see us reach the 3 million mark,” says Gwen.

“But with a big family, many grandchildren and great grandchildren to take it on, you never know.”

The Dens’ 245GL, it appears, really is a Volvo for life – and very likely the highest mileage car still running daily in Australia, if not the world.