Mega-mileage Cars Are Better Value - And Tell Better Stories

I need to come clean at the start: I don't practise what I'm about to preach. It was my pain after buying an 80,000-mile Fiat Panda 100HP with bigger chasms in its bodywork than Cheddar Gorge that pushed me to sell it and finance a nearly new Mazda MX-5 instead.

So I'm not a proprietor of high-milers, but I love them nonetheless. High mileage is a sweet attribute that makes a desirable model normally priced beyond your reach look affordable. For instance, searching for a first car for my brother, we found a 2015 Suzuki Swift Sport that was cheap enough to land in our tight budget – because it had lapped the earth six times so was viewed widely as undesirable.

Yet bar cosmetic scars, it had a full service history, no rust and lots more to give. A high-mileage hero. Sure, it might need some work in the years to come, but doesn't every decade-old car? Regardless of how well it had been looked after, it had been all but cast away into Facebook Marketplace just because of how much it had been used. And that makes me feel a little wistful.

Because it isn't just the rational appeal of high-milers – the bargains – that makes my heart flutter, but also the stories those cars have to tell. I sit and dream of all the smiles a 200,000-mile Porsche 911 has conjured; the family holidays kick-started by the endless fleets of aged Mercedes V-Classes and Volkswagen Transporters; the drunken laughs and first kisses shared in the back of Toyota Prius minicabs that are all but bound for the scrapheap. To think of all the highs and lows in which the car has shared, by dint simply of having travelled so far, inspires me.

Nothing sets me daydreaming more than my discovery of an X account called Mileage Impossible. Though stocked with plenty of humdrum 1.9 TDI Skoda Octavias and the like, there's properly exotic stuff being driven far and wide. Among my favourites is an E60 BMW M5 that has covered 240,000 miles – in spite of its notoriously temperamental 'S85' V10 engine. The service record is staggering: eight sets of spark plugs (for a total of 80!), two sets of rod bearings (a well-known weak point) and 65 oil changes (Castrol will be delighted). The whole car has been practically rebuilt several times over, yet it's still in use, keeping its owner happy.

Other highlights from this X account include a 4.2 supercharged Jaguar XKR with 415,551 miles, a Porsche Panamera with the rare 4.0-litre diesel V8 that has covered 621,371 miles – with its original engine, turbos and gearbox intact – and a LaFerrari with 92,307 miles.

"Take care of your car and your car will take care of you" is the message promoted by Mileage Impossible. It's true – and a good maxim to follow in a world increasingly averse to disposable consumerism. It's another reason why I love high-milers.

But to return to the cost-benefit aspect, there are big savings to be made and I reckon the trade-off with a high-mileage car is smaller than we might have been conditioned to expect. So am I tempted to buy a high-miler myself? Almost daily. It's bound to happen eventually.