Famous Chevy

The couple owns two of the fleet cars, a 1955 blue Chevy Bel Air and a 1956 pink-and-white Bel Air called Lola that could possibly be the most photographed classic car in Cuba. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sat behind Lola’s pink steering wheel during an April business mission to Cuba as the cameras whirred.

When Alvarez lifted Lola’s hood to show the governor the old engine had died and been replaced by a four-cylinder Toyota diesel engine, Cuomo said seeing a Chevy with a Toyota engine was a first for him.

Lola is a looker with whitewall tires and pink rims, pink and white plastic-covered upholstery and even lipstick-pink car locks. But another silver-gray 1956 Bel Air in the fleet has its original engine and a big-cat purr that makes Lola seem like a kitten.

Alvarez says he’s constantly in touch with the government about possibly turning NostalgiCar into a cooperative. Many formerly state-run beauty salons, barbershops and other service companies have been turned over to their workers who run them independently on a profit-and-loss basis as the government seeks to pare state payrolls.

But so far he hasn’t had a positive response, so each driver/owner is an individual cars. NostalgiCar grew quickly from five classic cars to 11 to 22.

But Alvarez said his dream is to have a company that provides services with a fleet of cars that he has refurbished and owns and that has drivers that he employs.

Even though Alvarez and his wife get no commissions from the other drivers in the NostalgiCar group, he said working collectively helps them get volume and name recognition.

Then there’s the problem of getting the parts needed to bring the cars back to their glory days.

Parts are hard to get in Cuba, so Alvarez often turns to Danchuk Manufacturing, a Santa Ana, Calif., company that makes 1955-1957 Chevrolet replacement parts, MAC’s Antique Auto Parts in Lockport, N.Y. and even eBay.

Like so many things in Cuba, there is a Miami connection. Because he hasn’t been able to buy direct, Alvarez works with a Miami middleman who purchases the parts that the garage needs with his credit card for a 20 percent surcharge and then arranges their delivery to Cuba through a Miami shipping company. He said it often costs $8 to $10 per pound to send the parts to Cuba. Then duties must be paid on the Cuba side.

That means a part with a factory value of $159 might end up costing him as much as $250, Alvarez said.

Under the new U.S. regulations, Alvarez and other private Cuban entrepreneurs like him may eventually be able to import the parts directly, said Miami attorney Augusto Maxwell.

“Theoretically any American business should be allowed to export to a private Cuban business person, but most U.S. companies aren’t familiar with how to do it,” he said. “It’s interesting to see the forces of private enterprise begin to work in Cuba and it will be interesting to see how they manage it.”

NostalgiCar has a preference for Chevys, but the fleet also includes some Fords and other makes.

Old junkers, which cost $6,000 to $7,000, come into the garage and after a year or so, they emerge as “very pretty” machines, Alvarez said.

The big missing ingredient for Cuba’s self-employed workforce, which now numbers nearly 500,000, is the lack of a meaningful wholesale market on the island. “If we can’t figure out how to get access to a wholesale market, I don’t think we’ll grow much larger,” Alvarez said.