i believe 3 million milles is about the distance travelled by the moon around the earth in 2 months. , a little over 3% the distance from the earth to the sun.

at 30mpg that's 100,000 gallons of gas !

Say 400000 litres of gas at a generous 12km/L. 14400000MJ Enough energy to get 437 Tonnes into space. Or are my calculations off? Good chance ;)

What were the major mechanical repairs to the car. And as the others have said I wonder what the running costs have been. Nice going and a cool car to do it in.

How do they verify this?

Did he spend all those miles wearing a hat and doing 20 under the speed limit with a line of cars behind him lol???
Ha ha no if he did 1500 miles over the first weekend in 1966, I reckon he might be driving a little more assertively than some Volvo drivers :-)
I've done about 1.3 million km in 20 years, mainly in Queensland Australia. Most of that was around town, a lot doing paid work. That's nothing compared to seasoned cabbies but it's a lot more than average and it gives me extra appreciation of Irv's efforts.

What about the car! All those miles under the wheels of an 1800cc four!

He had the right car for it. I don't drive Volvo any longer but must says that it is the very best car for long distances.

How many times was the motor rebuilt? One has to assume that all the running gear was replaced many times over, even if Irv took good care of his wheels. And if he recorded every last mile, then he must have kept records of all the maintenance bills.
Which begs the question: Did Volvo recognize the significant image boost that Mr. Gordon provided for the company, and did they subsidize his costs? I would think/hope so.

They need to spend more time on fixing there poor taillight design. or am I the only one to notice that for years, Volvo has big issues with non working brake lights or running lights. there cars needed to be the safest on the road, because there was a good chance you were going to get rear-ended in one do to faulty lights, and after the accident there was no proof do to the evidence was destroyed in the crash.