Here are some pictures taken from our trip to Cuba. I couldn't wander too far from the tour group, but was still able to get some car pictures. A number of these cars don't have "HAMB friendly" wheels, so if that is too offensive, the mods can delete this thread. If the embargo ends, we should send CARE Packages of better wheels to them. Before the trip, I read that many of the "Yank Tanks" are powered by Russian tractor diesel engines, but in talking to some of the drivers, it sounded like Toyota diesels were now the choice conversion. Most of the convertibles were scalped sedans/hardtops. Our first stop was Trinidad, which is in central Cuba on the Caribbean coast.
The next day, we want to Havana, first stopping at a Spanish fortress, Morro Castle, which overlooks old city Havana.
Glad you didn't stray too far from the group. Would hate to see you spend the rest of your life in a Russian gulag!
Old Town Havana was our next stop. We had lunch at a Paladar, which is a restaurant in a person's home. It was on a second floor, so I got some pictures from the balcony. Using a point & shoot camera to take pictures of moving cars didn't produce the best results, but I'll post them anyway.
Next, the bus stopped at a park that had a couple buildings where one had a big picture of Che and the other building had some other revolutionary guy with a big beard (wasn't Castro). There were a bunch of taxis there, which were more interesting to me.
We went on a walking tour in Old Town Havana, but I took more pictures of cars than historic buildings.
One of the really cool tourist things which was arranged by the tour was getting a ride from the hotel to a restaurant in old taxis. They had to get 95 old cars to cover our group. We rode in a '55 Mercury, which is in the pictures above from Morro Castle. My brother got a ride in an Oldsmobile, which still had the original engine, but it broke down half way there, so the driver called for another ride. I had a good seat at the restaurant, where I could watch all the cars dropping everyone off. Didn't get too many pictures though.
On the bus ride back to the ship, we stopped at the Bay of Pigs Museum. Since I wasn't interested in that history, I looked at cars instead. I'll throw in a picture of the gas station too.
Great pic's, thanks for sharing. What a lot of folks would not know is a lot of the cars travelling on the roads which have a lot of passengers are like private taxi's and they run routes into Havana City. Folks seeking a ride just seem to know where to hang out and eventually one of these cars comes along, abit like kerb crawling and drops off and picks up passengers. I rode in numerous makes and models on purpose when I was there a while back when things were still quite raw. Just part of the way of life over there...
Thanks for sharing, can't imagine what it takes to keep these running. I don't know if I could get used a diesel '55 Chevy!
Very cool. Thanks for sharing. The 50's Taxis are obviously aimed at tourists. Do they charge a premium compared to standard taxis? Seems to be a ton of 1950's 4 dr. Sedans. Agree on the wheels. Most seem to be running those awful stamped 'blade' wheels. Wonder if those are made domestically there?
Good stuff, thanks. I wonder how a lil' Toyo diesel goes pushing a 2&1/2 ton Caddy around? It would be interesting to see under one of those hoods!
There is a Velocity channel series called "Cuban Chrome" dealing with these cars and a few pf the folks that keep them running. They have car clubs and to make better money they try to get a tourist taxi license.
Like one gigantic cruse! Lots of cool cars. At least they take care of them & keep em running. Thanks for sharing.
Great pictures, thank you for posting. I have always heard about the cars in Cuba but have always been curious as to what the car scene actually looked like there. Sent from my SM-G550T using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Diesel engines seemed to be the weapon of choice in many cars when I was there, with numerous modifications under the hood just to keep things running. I saw a mid 50's Cadillac 4 door running a truck sized diesel and front semi elliptic springs as all the original IFS was gone. I found a mid 50's Chev sedan using some weird geometry to replace worn and lost steering arms and box. I ain't much on Spanish language but determined the guy had needed to replace his steering box and ended up with one from a truck and column to go with it. It was sure a custom mod that seemed to work but not pretty at all. There is a lot of rust out visible when you are on the ground standing right next to them...
Tires are tough to come by. Shipping container of "useable" used tires shipped there from scrapyard in Ontario. Old cars there same as here...always needing attention.
The 17th picture down from the top shows a 1960 Buick "convertible"...I find that kind of interesting...Castro took over in 1959...so I wonder how that car made it there. It might have been a one off deal for some higher up person. All the American cars you see there are normally 1959 and older....really 1958 and older..
May have been used by some country as an Embassy car or similar. There was examples of newer that 1959 cars that I saw, not many but those example were just not American cars. Probably the most common if I could use that word were VW Beetles and old Falcon clones from South America and a few German and Russian cars and trucks. Cuba at the time of my visit had a beautiful array of Ford F series Truck right up to F850 I recall. I suppose a few vehicles trickled in from Spain as well as Mexico and other nearby Caribbean countries.
The Jalopy Journal
