An unassuming Aussie dad who shot to viral fame with his one-million-kilometre Toyota HiLux has revealed the simple trick he used to hit the seven-figure milestone.
Paul O’Brien, 63, was excited to hop into his trusty old work truck one morning late last year. After a decade-and-a-half, odometer was about to tick over 999,999 kilometres.
Or so he thought.
Mr O’Brien’s daughter, Chloe, decided to film a TikTok video of the moment — which did not go exactly to plan.
“She said, ‘I want to come with you today.’ I didn’t even realise until she started filming,” Mr O’Brien told news.com.au.
“I was p****d off because it got to 999,999,999 — it still hasn’t ticked over.”
Chloe’s amusing video racked up more than 600,000 views, eventually drawing the attention of Toyota, which flew out a film crew to shoot an ad with the O’Brien family that went live last week.
“The girls said, ‘This is going viral.’ I’m not sure what that means,” Mr O’Brien said.
“I’m not a computer person. I think it means you get a lot of views. I was surprised.”
Despite the speedo “stitch-up”, as Chloe put it, Mr O’Brien has nothing but glowing praise for old three-litre manual diesel — “my girls can’t drive a manual” — which has done another 8000-odd kilometres since the video.
Mr O’Brien, from Warrnambool southwest Victoria, bought the SR-25 from Colac Toyota in 2010 for around $40,000, and still drives it every day for his business, O’Brien’s Pest Control.
The HiLux has been one of Australia’s most popular cars for the past two decades, topping annual sales charts for 12 of the 15 years until 2021, and more recently battling in the top three against the Ford Ranger and Toyota’s RAV4.
Last year the Ranger was Australia’s top-selling vehicle (56,555), followed by the RAV4 (51,947) and the HiLux (51,297).
“It’s just been my everyday truck,” Mr O’Brien said.
“I used to do 70-80,000 a year, I’ve slowed down a bit lately.”
He insists “it’s the best car I’ve ever had”.
“She just keeps going,” he said.
“I always tell everyone to buy one. It’s funny because they’re not as flash as some of the Fords and the other brand cars that come out, they might not have all the flashest buttons on them and different things on the screen but they just seem to be reliable.
“If anyone challenged me to jump in and drive it to Darwin I’d jump in tomorrow.”
Mr O’Brien said the HiLux had never had any issues, apart from a minor gearbox repair at around 200,000km.
“The motor’s never been touched,” he said.
There was no big secret, he said, besides regular servicing.
“Every 10,000km, which is a lot of times,” he said. “That’s 10 times 10 — it’s been serviced over 100 times. But it’s never had anything go wrong with it. It never uses oil, never uses water. When Willy, my mechanic, does the services he does the oil, then I never check it.”
One million kilometres may sound like a lot, but Mr O’Brien may need a few more years behind the wheel of the “old girl” to catch up with Russell and Gwen Den.
Slow and steady wins the race for the NSW florists, who early last year ticked over two million kilometres on their Volvo 245GL — which they bought from a Liverpool dealership in 1979.
Volvo believes the Dens’ vehicle is likely the highest-mileage car still running daily in Australia.
Mr O’Brien, who recently bought a second HiLux for more than $100,000, said besides sending a film crew out, no one from Toyota had spoken to him.
He’s not holding his breath for a new car, but “I thought they might have given me a tour of the Toyota factory or something”.
“They might shout me a new speedo cluster, so I can actually read it,” he joked.
Toyota has been contacted for comment.
