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Cuban cars have attracted a lot of attention as the country has a
vast population of upto five decade or older American cars, that have
been largely compulsorily kept as fit as a fiddle. These indicate the
best of times as far as relations with the US were concerned.
Thereafter, the imports stopped around 1959 and the cars on the streets
had to be kept moving.Spares became scarce and hard to get. Tinkering,
ingenuity and fabrications were of help, but at the cost of quality and
reliability.
Outwardly,
most of these cars have been kept in a gleaming condition but their
interiors, dash, engines, mechanicals and electricals have all from
time to time been replaced with local replacements.
One
Indipop video in the late 1990's by Lucky Ali for his album entitled "O
Sanam", if my memory serves me right, showed the streets of Cuba and a
gleaming 1950's Chevy that he was driving.
Read more about these below:
Source New York Times website by Tom Miller
Ricardo's recently purchased four-door 1956 Chevy Bel Air, freshly painted, looked just the ticket.
After a couple of miles, Leonardo nonchalantly asked about oil. "I
don't know," Ricardo replied. "I've never put in any in." The Chevy
peaked at about 35 mileack on the road, a side window fell into the lap of a startled Juan
Carlos. The car lacked windshield wipers, rear lights and bumpers, and
none of the dashboard dials worked. Ricardo himself lacked a driver's
license. The clutch pedal fell through what was left of the floor.
Often they had to push-start the car after a stop. (The car did have a
fully functioning theft-alarm system.). While driving they routinely stopped every five miles to s***
gas into the siphon and feed the engine.
Ricardo's Chevy is one of an estimated 60,000 pre-1960 American cars
roaming Cuba. About 150,000 existed at the time of the 1959 revolution,
shortly after which the Detroit auto giants and all American
manufacturers were forced to stop sending goods to Cuba to conform to
the United States' embargo. Ricardo's car is far more typical than the
ones that art directors love to put on the covers of books about Cuba
to evoke a melancholy feeling. Movies about Cuba like "Buena Vista
Social Club" turn the jalopies into objects of nostalgia by panning
lovingly over a wheel-less Chrysler here or a Plymouth stalled in
traffic there. Yet to get dewy-eyed about old American cars in Cuba is
to get whimsical about our trade embargo against the island.
There is a feeling abroad in the land that Cubans love old American
cars. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cubans love new American
cars, not old ones, but the newest ones that they can get their hands
on are 45 years old.
I once saw a functioning 1934 Plymouth on the streets of Sancti
Spíritus, a town of about 100,000 in the country's interior, and I know
how that sensation of visiting a living museum of old cars can
unexpectedly creep up on you. Informally, when Cuba hands sit around
and consider the opportunities that could arise when the United States
and Cuba return to their senses, some fantasize about getting into
construction or electronics, industries that may burst wide open. But
after seeing Ricardo's '56 Chevy, I predict a great future in low-end
auto parts.
A local mechanic relies on creative wiring and the
assistance of neighbors to install a battery in an American car from the 1950's
in Havana.
"To own one of these vintages, known as cacharos, or
less commonly bartavias, in Cuba
defines who you are, how you spend your time and how you wish to be
known," author Tom Miller says.
The reality of old cars in Cuba
is closer to this scene in a parking garage.
American members of a U.S.- Cuba travel conference toured Havana
in pristinely maintained Detroit
products from the pre-embargo age.
A late 1940's Buick Super
A late 1950's Cadillac
Tom Miller says, "... when your motor purrs, when you accelerate effortlessly
from second to third gear, when the doors click into place, you momentarily
forget your difficulties and glide for blocks with a prideful smile ..."
more pictures source: jewishcuba.org.autos
source autoweek
A mid 1950's Cadillac El Dorado
vast population of upto five decade or older American cars, that have
been largely compulsorily kept as fit as a fiddle. These indicate the
best of times as far as relations with the US were concerned.
Thereafter, the imports stopped around 1959 and the cars on the streets
had to be kept moving.Spares became scarce and hard to get. Tinkering,
ingenuity and fabrications were of help, but at the cost of quality and
reliability.
Outwardly,
most of these cars have been kept in a gleaming condition but their
interiors, dash, engines, mechanicals and electricals have all from
time to time been replaced with local replacements.
One
Indipop video in the late 1990's by Lucky Ali for his album entitled "O
Sanam", if my memory serves me right, showed the streets of Cuba and a
gleaming 1950's Chevy that he was driving.
Read more about these below:
Source New York Times website by Tom Miller
Ricardo's recently purchased four-door 1956 Chevy Bel Air, freshly painted, looked just the ticket.
After a couple of miles, Leonardo nonchalantly asked about oil. "I
don't know," Ricardo replied. "I've never put in any in." The Chevy
peaked at about 35 mileack on the road, a side window fell into the lap of a startled Juan
Carlos. The car lacked windshield wipers, rear lights and bumpers, and
none of the dashboard dials worked. Ricardo himself lacked a driver's
license. The clutch pedal fell through what was left of the floor.
Often they had to push-start the car after a stop. (The car did have a
fully functioning theft-alarm system.). While driving they routinely stopped every five miles to s***
gas into the siphon and feed the engine.
Ricardo's Chevy is one of an estimated 60,000 pre-1960 American cars
roaming Cuba. About 150,000 existed at the time of the 1959 revolution,
shortly after which the Detroit auto giants and all American
manufacturers were forced to stop sending goods to Cuba to conform to
the United States' embargo. Ricardo's car is far more typical than the
ones that art directors love to put on the covers of books about Cuba
to evoke a melancholy feeling. Movies about Cuba like "Buena Vista
Social Club" turn the jalopies into objects of nostalgia by panning
lovingly over a wheel-less Chrysler here or a Plymouth stalled in
traffic there. Yet to get dewy-eyed about old American cars in Cuba is
to get whimsical about our trade embargo against the island.
There is a feeling abroad in the land that Cubans love old American
cars. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cubans love new American
cars, not old ones, but the newest ones that they can get their hands
on are 45 years old.
I once saw a functioning 1934 Plymouth on the streets of Sancti
Spíritus, a town of about 100,000 in the country's interior, and I know
how that sensation of visiting a living museum of old cars can
unexpectedly creep up on you. Informally, when Cuba hands sit around
and consider the opportunities that could arise when the United States
and Cuba return to their senses, some fantasize about getting into
construction or electronics, industries that may burst wide open. But
after seeing Ricardo's '56 Chevy, I predict a great future in low-end
auto parts.
A local mechanic relies on creative wiring and the
assistance of neighbors to install a battery in an American car from the 1950's
in Havana.
"To own one of these vintages, known as cacharos, or
less commonly bartavias, in Cuba
defines who you are, how you spend your time and how you wish to be
known," author Tom Miller says.
The reality of old cars in Cuba
is closer to this scene in a parking garage.
American members of a U.S.- Cuba travel conference toured Havana
in pristinely maintained Detroit
products from the pre-embargo age.
A late 1940's Buick Super
A late 1950's Cadillac
Tom Miller says, "... when your motor purrs, when you accelerate effortlessly
from second to third gear, when the doors click into place, you momentarily
forget your difficulties and glide for blocks with a prideful smile ..."
more pictures source: jewishcuba.org.autos
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source autoweek
A mid 1950's Cadillac El Dorado
