Modern cars can certainly go the distance. And here to give us some pointers, we have Chris Chessnoe, from Callaway Cars. Chris, welcome to Goss’ Garage.

Chris: Thanks for having us.

Pat: Alright. The Corvette that we’re beside here, this is living testament to high mileage.

Chris: Absolutely, this Callaway Corvette SC606 just turned 205,000 miles.

Pat: Oooh. Alright, now I assume that you’ve babied it all that time?

Chris: Absolutely. We’ve driven this car rigorously yet intelligently.

Pat: Ok, I like that. Has it really…I mean it’s been road tested and all kinds of different things…

Chris: It has. In fact, when this vehicle was brand new, MotorWeek was one of the first to test it, and went and put the car through its paces. Absolutely.

Pat: Ok, what have you done to maintain it?

Chris: So, from a maintenance standpoint, we have followed the GM owners’ manual schedule, and just done things like oil changes; 28 oil changes.

Pat: ok.

Chris: We’ve inspected all the fluids, and made sure all the fluids were to spec. So aside from the 28 oil changes, 17 sets of tires, five sets of brakes, two sets of wiper blades, and things of that nature.

Pat: Alright, now one thing that would concern me: what about the clutch in it?

Chris: still the original clutch, in fact.

Pat: Wow. That is impressive.

Chris: It’s really impressive from the standpoint that, when we engineered this package, we took advantage of or exploited the engineering headroom that GM left on the table. So we have a 606 horsepower grand sport that we took advantage of. And left a safety net in place.

Pat: Ok, now you had mentioned about hand washing cars. Which I’m a big fan of.

Chris: Absolutely. Hand washing the car gets the owner in touch with the vehicle.  When you hand wash the vehicle, you notice things like the body, the lights, the wheels, the tires. All of the exterior. And we also take that to the inside, under the hood. We wash under the hood, and then also on the inside of the car. So you’ll notice things that should be addressed. If you have a piece of trim that’s loose, or have…you inspect and you can see that your brake pads are running low, or you can also look at rotor wear, anything of that nature you’ll pick up when you spend the time to hand wash it. So we’re a big advocate of that. And whether it’s a high performance Corvette, or your daily driven sedan, hand washing applies.

Pat: Ok, now one of the things that I have done over the years is, I spend a lot of time on my cars tightening things.  Because stuff loosens up over time. Like on the Camaro here, the tie bar between the strut towers, I was tightening some stuff underneath the hood, and I put the torque wrench on those and those bolts were loose. Now, if you have one of those on your car, you want to make sure that it’s tight all the time, because the change in the handling was amazing. Just by tightening those bolts.

Chris: And that’s absolutely right. We’re big fans of nut and bolt inspections as well. This vehicle has gone on six different road courses; autocrossed and drag raced. And we do an inspection before and after each time we put it through its paces. This car, by the way, ran 10.8 in the quarter mile at 128 after turning 118,000 miles.

Pat: Oh my goodness.

Chris: Can you believe that?

Pat: Impressive. Chris, thank you.

And if you have a question or comment, drop me a line, right here at MotorWeek.