This man's name is Calvin Vincent, and he has a 1977 model Chevy truck.
This is what he said," I bought this truck new in 1978 at Mayville Motor Company in North Dakota. I have used it in my construction business ever since then. This truck has pulled equipment on construction trailers, and has been a work horse for the last 29 years. The transmission was replaced once, and the short block twice, but most of this truck is still original. I still use it everyday. I have had a long-lasting and rewarding experience with my Chevrolet."
if that truck got 16 mpg
2048402/16=128025.125 gallons of diesel run through that engine
at an average of 2 bucks a gallon 128025.125x2=236050.25 bucks spent on diesel alone
But he wondered if he had a lemon on his hands when Kenny Forsgren called a few months later to say his 1978 Scottsdale 10 half-ton pickup had been recalled.
Calvin, who operates Vincent Construction, got a new engine block and hit the road again, traveling all over the Great Plains, putting up steel buildings and grain elevators, as well as running ready-mix cement plants on construction sites from Brownsville, Texas, to the Canadian border.
"I'd put on 100- or 150,000 miles a year on that truck, easy," he said. "It never stopped running. I'd be in Montana one day and drive to Iowa the next, then go to Texas and back," he said. "I had 1 million miles on it before Kenny conned me into putting in a new 1985 diesel."
That old truck is still running today another 1 million-plus miles later.
Calvin has slowed down just a bit in the past few months, after a heart overhaul triple bypass surgery in June. He missed a trip to Texas in August, where he was one of nine people from across the country honored as a member of the Chevrolet Silverado 200,000-Mile Club.
That's 200,000, not 2 million.
With mileage documentation to back it up, Kenny's son convinced Calvin to tell his story for the Chevy promotion.
On Tuesday, he received another plaque from the company, presented at Finley Motors in Finley, N.D. Finley Motors now operates the former Mayville Motors.
"I was hoping they were going to give me a new truck," he joked.
Not that he really needs one.
"When I'm not working, I'm not driving," he said, "so I don't need anything else."
Calvin seldom trades his vehicles. The yard at his construction office in Hannaford is filled with old pickups and cement mixers, most of them Chevys. He still has the 1973 Chevy pickup he was driving when he bought his '78.
Besides the engine replacements, Calvin has had just one other major repair on the truck a transmission overhaul.
"The rear end's never been touched," he said.
Calvin says he's a Chevy, "like a rock."
He's been mayor of Hannaford for nearly 40 years and was re-elected last week to another term.
"I never ran once," he said. "I always won on write-ins," he said.
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