BIG WHEELS

I remain one of the few Southern Californians who prefer beaters to overpriced ego builders, so I was delighted with Patt Morrison’s “A Clunker Mentality” (Three on the Town, Feb. 13).

Tucked inside the ton of tan-colored steel that is my ’76 Volvo four-door sedan, I am as fearless on the freeways as Patton’s Sherman tanks on their rush through France and Germany. I wince, still, when I recall my first car--a jade-green, black-vinyl-topped 1968 Olds 4-4-2 equipped with AM-FM stereo, eight-track tape player and Hurst four-on-the-floor--and that first (oh, horror, self-inflicted) dent in the driver’s-side door. That dent is probably why I’ve never owned a new car since.

GLENN DALY

San Diego