The vertex drift chamber of the L3 Experiment at LEP, based on the time expansion principle, was in operation from the start-up of LEP in 1989 until the shutdown of LEP in 2000. The gas mixture used was 80% CO2 and 20% i-C4H10 at a pressure of . We present the design of the chamber, the infrastructure and the performance during the 11 years of operation. The total radiation received on the anode wires was ~10-4 C/cm. No degradation of the anode pulse amplitude, wire efficiencies and resolution was observed for the whole running period.