If you're the type of person who buys a new vehicle and gets bored of it after only a few years, you may be able to learn a thing or two from 87-year-old Nova Scotia resident Randall Pitman.
Pitman has owned the same 1927 Ford Model T pickup since 1949 and still regularly drives it today. He purchased the truck at an auction in 1949 for just $47.50, pumping gas for 10 cents an hour until he had enough money saved up to buy it.
In an interview with the CBC, Pitman said he knew the truck was going to be sold at the auction, so he took his hard-earned savings down to the local auction house and started bidding.
"Eventually, I bid $45 and the auctioneer, as auctioneers do, kept saying, 'Forty-five! Who will give me 50?'" he said. "I stupidly said 'Forty-seven fifty,' and he said 'Sold!'"
Lest you think he only has room for one Model T in his garage – he later purchased a Ford Model T coupe in 1960 and has been restoring the two-door alongside his truck for the last seven years. He and his wife were preparing to put the truck on a flatbed for a car show in PEI when CBC paid them a visit. He used to do the 600-kilometre drive to the show in the truck, but parts for the 92-year-old truck are now hard to come by and don't come cheap, he explained, so they decided not to take any risks this year.
Pitman has been able to keep his reliable old Ford on the road for nearly 70 years, although we're not so sure the modern crop of cars we're stuck with will have the same staying power as a Model T. We're optimists, but something tells us we won't be getting over-the-air updates for our fancy connected vehicles 92 years after the fact...
