Driving forces in a pandemic

Re: It’s a pandemic Porsche, not a midlife crisis, Jonathan Kay, Feb. 13

After having been a pedestrian and a bus rider for more than four years, COVID-19 has reintroduced me to being a carbon-spewing, mechanic-dependent, insurance-premiumed car owner. Not the indulgence of an exotic foreign status symbol, as investment, but a mere 20-year-old cheap car built in Oshawa, Ont., for transport.

by not riding the bus as I have for years, successfully reducing my carbon footprint and saving money, I can now socially distance by avoiding the travelling public and keeping my bubble small. On a fixed income, this has been the cost of personal safety and health for this senior.

I look forward to the days of a vaccination and the second jab. but I’m not sure I’ll ever give up the independence again. Sorry, public transport.

Paul Gibson, Rossland, B.C.

Mr. Kay could have satisfied his craving for a boxer engine by making me an offer for my 1971 Volkswagen Super beetle, which still features an original aluminum block four-cylinder boxer engine, like its several million plebeian brothers and sisters, distributed all over the world in the past 70 years or so. Barry Stagg, Toronto

PETER J THOMPSON / NATIONAL POST Reporter Jonathan Kay helped shake off his pandemic rut through the purchase of a Porsche Cayman. Until then, he drove an e-vehicle and a minivan.