773,000-Mile C5 Corvette Gets Officially Donated to Corvette Museum

It might be time to second guess garage-queening your Corvette for the next owner.

By now you might remember the name Mark Blackwell. For the past two years, we have chronicled Mark and his driving habits with his 2000 C5 Corvette. In 2015, we wrote about how he passed 650,000 miles on his vehicle. Then last year we wrote about how he was over 710,000. Well, now we have another update. And sadly, this might be the last update we have about the amazing vehicle.

Recently Blackwell pushed his Corvette over 773,000 miles. To celebrate the achievement, he finally donated his red Corvette to the National Corvette Museum, as seen in this video. The 18-year old car looks as good as the day Blackwell bought it, just with a little more wear and tear under the hood. Surprisingly, all 773,000 miles were put on the original engine. If you break that down, over the 18 years he owned the vehicle, Blackwell put on over 100 miles a day. That’s incredible.

If there’s a lesson to be had here, it’s that cars are made to be driven. Even if a Corvette is your dream car and you can’t imagine anything happening to it, it deserves to be on the road. As Blackwell has proven, you can drive your Corvette every day for almost two decades. And if you treat it well, it’ll keep on going. Plus, we all know that the best memories you have about a car are the ones behind the wheel.

Blackwell was never afraid to drive his C5, and it paid off. In the video he recounts the closest call he ever had in the Corvette. He was driving down the road late at night behind a semitruck, when the bumper of the truck fell off. To avoid the bumper, he swerved into a median, blowing out his two back tires. However, even through all of that, the Corvette survived and lived another day.

Don’t treat your Corvette like a dainty little toy. It’s a performance vehicle. Drive it! Now, who’s ready to put a million miles on one?