10. The Greek Taxi Driver Drove 4.6 Million Kilometers With His Mercedes 240 D, The Highest Milage Car.

Gregorios Sachinides went to Germany in 1963 at 18 as a guest worker and, with a one-year interruption of military service, he worked there at various jobs until 1978. He learned much about cars and had a crash on the Mercedes 200 D.

Back home, he started working as a taxi driver. In 1981, the Greek government passed a law allowing taxi drivers to use diesel vehicles. Sachinidis knew what he wanted. He spent two months in Germany to find his dream car and found what he was looking for near Stuttgart.

The car built in 1976 had about 220,000 kilometers on it. He was the fourth owner after two Germans and a Yugoslav.

In and around Thessaloniki, he drove many famous customers. In 1986 he picked up Gerd Müller from the airport in Thessaloniki. He never forgot his handshake with the world-famous German football star.

During the Balkan crisis, Sachinides drove to Belgrade with Red Cross medicines. He had eighty trips to Bulgaria and nine to Turkey.

Over the years, the 200 D (55 hp) became 240 D (65 hp). Sachinides installed three replacement engines and overhauled the units eleven times.

Before the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Greece, the government banned old taxis from traffic for causing air pollution. Sachinides’ veteran Mercedes also had to be retired. He wrote a letter to Board of Management member Juergen Hubbert and named the magic number 4,600,000.

Later, representatives of the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim visited the Greek city of Thessaloniki. In the end, he handed over the vehicle to the Museum, and as a thank you, Mercedes gave the Greek taxi driver a brand new C 200 CDI in 2004.

Irve Gordon, a physics teacher from Long Island, New York, bought a brand new Volvo P1800 sports tourer in 1966 and he drove 5,149,900 kilometers until his death at 77 in 2018. Guinness World Records recognized his 1966 Volvo P1800 as the highest milage car on the planet.