U.S.-Cuba deal may bring new life to old cars
Island-dwellers among the most inventive technicians but need updated auto parts
HAVANA— Dairo Tio cruises the streets of Havana in a gleaming black 1954 Buick with polished chrome highlights and the diesel motor from an electric plant bolted beneath the hood.
When the brakes failed in his beautiful Frankenstein of a taxi cab, Tio couldn’t work for15 days as he waited for a machinist to hand-carve the necessary screws.
The half-century-old embargo on most U.S. exports has turned Cubans into some of the most inventive mechanics in the world.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement that he is loosening the embargo through executive action has Cubans dreaming of an end to the era of cannibalizing train springs for suspensions and cutting tire patches by hand. One of the measures announced by Obama last week would allow U.S. exports to Cuba’s small class of private business owners, which includes thousands of mechanics and taxi drivers.
While the details of Obama’s reforms remain uncertain, Cubans are hopeful that their publication in the coming weeks will be the announcement of the end of a five-decade drought of cars and parts.
“Maybe it will be possible to get parts faster, at better prices,” said a hopeful Raul Arabi, 58.
Cuba long-restricted car ownership almost entirely to prominent bureaucrats, high achievers in their fields and professionals who completed government service abroad. That limit was dropped last year but replaced by markups that drove prices as high as $262,000 for a Peugeot listed for the equivalent of about $53,000 outside Cuba.
That leaves classic cars as still one of the only options for Cubans needing private transportation for themselves or a business, although prices around $20,000 for old cars mean buyers on the island often need help for the purchase from relatives abroad. With so much invested in their cars, new engines, hoods, fenders and transmissions are a dream for the owners of what were once known as “Humphrey Bogarts,” and remain a fixture of the landscape.
In the meantime, necessity will drive invention when it comes to maintaining the thousands of classic cars that fill Cuba’s cities and countryside.
And while Cubans’ ingenuity at keeping the cars running is impressive and admirable, the fact that they have patched together the old cars with scraps means the cars have little chance of becoming collectors’ items in the U.S. once the market between the two countries does open up.