Folks from metric countries, how does Dominic Toretto live his life? What distance at a time?
The full quote in dirty imperial units:
I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters: not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit. For those ten seconds or less, I’m free.
Can't say about other countries, but here in general you just say "n liters" dropping "per 100 kilometers". Another metric that conveys the same thing.
Right, but beyond that we've got further definitions of the word meaning "usefulness" or "getting benefit from". So like a clip that had lasting support throughout a political campaign that can be used over and over could be described as something you "get a lot of mileage out of". Does that exist in metric countries?
I'm not aware of a specific idiom that conveys that meaning in my language. We'd say 'it's economical/thrifty' but there's no car related idiom. A combined word like 'kilometerrendement' might be conjured up, but isn't in common use.
As sayings go, they predate the petrol engine like : 'that'll keep the stove burning for a while' or 'sailing with the wind'
I think this idiom is specific to english-speaking north america, due to it being vast and car-centric, we have a similar idiom that means hardy, reliable and getting things done - workhorse, this one is used in multiple slavic languages and in english (I think).
There is "metráž" ("metrage" with French pronounciation) and "kilometráž" in my language. The former is used for items sold by the meter (carpets, film stock) while the latter is very rare and refers to the little numbers between pin-marked intersections in road atlases. Both are falling out of fashion and so is the literal translation of "footage" (stopáž), now replaced with délka ("length") and meaning duration, never the footage (recording) itself.