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You wouldnā€™t expect someone to work hard to get into finance, just so they can drive a decades-old truck. But thatā€™s exactly what Jeremy Morris did. And for a sound financial reason.

Morris is a 45-year-old financial adviser in Coeur dā€™Arlene, Idaho. You might imagine a man his age, in his line of work, would be leasing a Porsche 911 as a flex. But not Morris. Morris admits heā€™s grown accustomed to his finance friends making fun of his old Toyota Tacoma. But anyone heā€™s known for long have also grown accustomed to it: Morris has owned the same truck for 24 years.

The way Morris figures it, the average person buys a new car every five years. Each new car would depreciate rapidly, all while you were paying interest on them. So even if you sold them whenever you bought a new one, you could be out $150k within 20 years. Morris owns his Tacoma outright. Even after spending $20k on maintenance over the past 300k miles, he figures heā€™s saved about $100k. Thatā€™s a lot of extra money, even more if youā€™re an expert in investing wisely.

Dark green Toyota Tacoma parked in front of trees on a city street.
Toyota Tacoma | DarthArt via iStockPhoto

Morris recently shared his experience, and his expertise, with the Wall Street Journal. Why? Because the paper was trying to make sense of the trend to keep cars for longer. Each of the past six years has seen vehicle owners keeping their cars longer. The average age of a car on the road today is 12.5 years. Whatā€™s more, 40% of the cars registered today are over 10 years old.

Want to buy a car that folks keep for a long time? When the iSeeCars website analyzed registration data a few years back, it found many makes and models folks were already keeping for 10+ years. Spoiler alert: Morrisā€™ decision to buy a Toyota was probably a smart one. Here are the top ten:

Make & ModelAverage time one owner keeps
Toyota Land Cruiser11.4 years
Chevrolet Corvette10.5 years
Mercedes-Benz SL-Class10.3 years
Audi TT10.2 years
Ford Expedition10.1 years
Ford Mustang10 years
Toyota 4Runner10 years
Porsche 9119.9 years
Toyota Avalon9.7 years

I will say the above list could be a bit misleading. Cars like the Porsche 911, Audi TT, Chevrolet Corvette, and even Mercedes-Benz SL-Class are popular sports cars, all offered as convertibles, that may be bought as ā€œsummer cars.ā€ So it makes sense that owners would have them for years, but might not put many miles on them. Here are the 20 cars with the longest potential lifespan, ranked by the average odometer reading of the highest mileage 1% still on the road.

Make & ModelTop 1% Avg Mileage
Toyota Sequoia296,509
Toyota Land Cruiser280,236
Chevrolet Suburban265,732
Toyota Tundra256,022
GMC Yukon XL252,360
Toyota Prius250,601
Chevrolet Tahoe250,338
Honda Ridgeline248,669
Toyota Avalon245,710
Toyota Highlander Hybrid244,994
Ford Expedition244,682
Toyota 4Runner244,665
Toyota Sienna239,607
GMC Yukon238,956
Honda Pilot236,807
Honda Odyssey235,852
Toyota Tacoma235,070
Nissan Titan233,295
Ford F-150232,650

Next, read about the Toyota Tacoma with 1.5-million ā€œGod-blessedā€ miles, or see more vehicles that often last into high mileage in the video below: