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WORLD> America
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Cuba, 'rolling museum' of vintage US cars
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-18 09:28 Drivers say most of the engine changes are performed by themselves, with the help of some strong-armed friends or neighbors to cut out the cost of hiring a professional mechanic. "Unfortunately, to tell you the truth, Cubans are very good at improvising," said one driver, who asked to remain anonymous.
"It's a question of necessity and because of the shortage of everything here including money," he said. The 47-year-old US trade embargo, imposed by President John F. Kennedy in response to Cuba's alignment with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, has helped ensure that factory-made or even aftermarket replacement parts for American-built cars are extremely hard to come by in Cuba.
Some owners, including members of at least one collectors' club, pride themselves on maintaining their original V-6 and V-8 Detroit motors, however, and the difference can be heard in their distinct rumble rather than the clatter of diesel replacements. "I've got a '55 Bel Air with the original engine and everything," said Robert Enriquez, who added that the only replacement part was the gearbox. "I'm not rich but I wouldn't sell it for anything," added Enriquez. But when he's eking out a living as a cab driver, he drives a modern compact, he said. Cuba's media, in reports on the US financial crisis, have highlighted events like GM's bankruptcy as symptomatic of everything gone wrong with the United States and the failure of unbridled US-style capitalism. But few if any owners of US cars on the streets of old Havana seem to be gloating about the economic meltdown or the fact that the wheels have nearly fallen off the US auto industry. "Do you think a company as big as General Motors can really go broke?," asked Marin, as he sat behind the wheel of his '53 Bel Air. "We Cubans, as a people, don't hold anything against Americans. In fact we share a lot in common," said Marin, as he waited for his passengers outside Havana's ornate Washington-style Capitol dome. "The bankruptcy of GM will always be a tough thing, that's for sure," he said.
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