A Photo-Illustrated Love Letter: Cuba’s Classic American Cars

 

I grew up during the golden age of big, colorful, gaudy, chrome- and fin-laden, American gas guzzlers.  And I loved them.  To me, cars symbolized the thrill and adventure of the open road and exploring new places all over the eastern United States.  They were also works of art for my young male brain.  One of my favorite photos from childhood shows me sitting behind the wheel of my dad’s ’49 Chevy wishing I were old enough to take her for a spin.  I still remember my excitement when Dad floored the accelerator on his 1950 Olds 88 on a straightaway in rural North Carolina and the speedometer hit 90 before he backed off.  On the morning of my 16^th birthday in 1962, I dragged Mom down to the Mercer County courthouse in Celina, Ohio where we completed the paperwork for my learner’s permit.  Immediately, she drove us out to a country road where I got to drive her big ol’ ’52 Olds for the first time.

As a teenager, I could identify the makes, models, and years of most American cars.  My buddies and I would pile into one of our parents’ cars and cruise Main Street on Friday and Saturday nights.  I would even disconnect the air filter from my mom’s ’58 Ford (she had since traded in the Olds) so the small V-8 engine would sound a bit menacing.  We had a spot at the edge of town where there were two highway signs exactly ¼ mile apart.  We would stop at the first sign, stomp on the gas, and see how fast we were going when we got to the second sign.  We called it “running the signs”.  Sometimes, when there was no traffic nor cops around “the signs”, we would do a ¼ mile drag race between two of our parents’ cars.   

I now recognize how the internal combustion engine has played havoc with the earth’s atmosphere, and my partner and I drive a hybrid 2014 Prius station wagon most of the time.  However, I still love the old cars of my youth.  And Cuba is definitely the place to see them.  Not in museums or at car shows but rolling along Cuba’s streets and highways.  Prior to the imposition of the U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba in 1961, nearly all of Cuba’s cars came from the U.S.  Even U.S. Mafiosi owned car dealerships in Cuba which found plenty of customers among the upper and middle classes, the government, and businesses. 

U.S. sanctions abruptly stopped the import of American automobiles but owners have kept their old girls running by scavenging parts, fabricating replacement parts, and an amazing display of mechanical ingenuity.  It’s astounding to see 60 to 70+ year-old cars still running both as taxis and private family vehicles.  Some are “smokers” on their last legs while others hum along at 50-60 mph on the highways.  A majority of the cars now on the road in Cuba are Russian imports like the Lada or popular European and Asian brands, but the old American classics make up maybe 20% of the Cuban fleet based on my observations. 

General Motors seems to have garnered at least half of the Cuban business prior to the boycott and Chevrolets are the most common brand on the road.  Other GM brands (Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick) are less common and I only saw a couple Cadillacs.  Ford company products were way behind GM - mostly Fords, a few Mercurys, and no Lincolns).  Chrysler came in third:  mostly Plymouths and Dodges; very few DeSotos or Chryslers.  Believe it or not, I even saw a few Studebakers, Packards, and Willys Jeeps.  Almost all the American classics were post-World War II models

I’m sorry some of my car-crazed high school buddies weren’t along on my trip.  I can imagine my high school classmate, Mike (who not surprisingly became a mechanical engineer and owns a classic Corvette), walking with me along a street in Havana saying things like, “Holy shit, man, look at that ’56!  Wonder what’s under the hood.”

Speaking about what’s under the hood, I didn’t get a look at many of the engines in these old cars but imagine that some have been replaced with dog-knows-whatever-works after the original motors died.  I did notice that gear shift levers for some of the original automatic transmissions had been removed and replaced by manual floor shifts with clutch pedals added.  I imagine that it has been difficult or impossible to find replacements or replacement parts for automatic transmissions and much easier to replace them with manual transmissions from Europe, etc. 

Here are a couple of my thoughts on Cuban cars.  First, the proliferation of newer cars in Cuba (primarily Russian before 1990 and European/Asian since then), starkly illustrates the failure of U.S. sanctions over the past 61 years.  Even under the communist regime, Cubans haven’t stopped buying cars.  They’ve just imported them from other countries and, as a result, American auto manufacturers have lost millions, if not a few billion, because of failed U.S. policies.  

Second, when U.S. sanctions are finally lifted (as they certain will someday), I hope the Cuban government forbids the export of any classic cars to wealthy collectors outside Cuba.  Otherwise, these beauties will disappear from Cuban streets and highways and will wind up in garages of the rich and famous in Hollywood and other centers of conspicuous capitalist consumption.  Instead, I hope that in the future, Cubans will be able to import parts, paint, and other accessories to keep these babies running and maintain their wonderful eye appeal.

Following is a gallery of photos of many of the classic American cars I saw in Cuba.  I think most of the makes and years are correct but comments/corrections are welcome.  Some were hard to identify from photos of only the front of the car, a difficulty which was compounded by original emblems and ornaments which had been lost and replaced by others which did not correspond to the correct make, model, and year of the car.

 

© Will Mahoney 2022

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