I have had so many older American cars I have beat the everloving shit out of, or just drove a fuckton of miles, hardly any of them being "easy miles" and... never any major issue.
Oh, I had a 1978 Chevy K20 blow up on me... but it had 240,000 miles on it, was a plow truck since brand new off the lot, and I was going 80 down the highway... the truck was running its balls off and ran itself out of oil.