As I saw it, raising our boy was a lot like training a horse. I didn’t want to break his spirit and turn him into a pit pony. Neither did I want him to become El Diablo. I hoped he would end up as Secretariat – a disciplined champion.
My wife and I decided that Will would have to repay our insurance deductibles and discount losses by getting a summer job. The total would be about $750. Porsche’s deductible on the car was $10,000. I offered to pay it. Mr. Bye said no.
Laurance Yap, PR manager for Porsche Canada, with a Porsche Cayenne that crashed end-over-end in the Siberian desert. The engine landed about another 100 feet away.— Courtesy of Rick Bye
I woke up the next morning sick to my stomach. I was the car journalist whose son had trashed a brand new Porsche Turbo. That wasn’t good. And I was still weighing my son’s punishment. I looked in my inbox. There was an e-mail from Mr. Bye. It was a picture of a Porsche executive standing in the Siberian desert with a bandage wrapped around his head. Behind him was a new Porsche Cayenne, completely destroyed after a high-speed crash, its components littered across the sand.
Mr. Bye had provided some perspective – and some heart. Porsche is a large corporation. They would not be happy about the trashing of their expensive car. But they had sucked it up and tried to make my son and I feel better. Mr. Bye’s gesture reminded me of a story about Frank Sinatra’s handling of a home disaster. When Frank’s daughter Nancy was young, she hosted a party at his house. On a table was a pair of priceless crystal birds. Suddenly there was a crash, and the room fell silent – one of Nancy’s friends had knocked one of the birds off the table, destroying it.
All eyes turned to Sinatra, the legendary Chairman of the Board. Sinatra stood silent for a moment. Then he swept the second bird off the table with the back of his hand. It exploded on the floor like a high-priced crystal grenade.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sinatra announced.
Postscript:
- My son has agreed to do a minimum of one week’s labour for Mr. Bye
- Initial body shop estimate for the 2010 Porsche Turbo – $11,000 plus taxes.
- My garage door was replaced last week, along with the door tracks, opener and door frame. I spent seven hours working alongside the installer. Total cost was $2,700. My insurance deductible was $500. I lose my no-claims insurance discount for three years.
- Later this summer, based on his schedule, my son will attend Apex driving school, where he will be trained in advanced car control and learn to drive a standard transmission.
