Batista Jr.'s 1956 Corvette, and other little-known facts

Che’s Chevrolet, Fidel’s Oldsmobile is chock-a-block with detail, so exhaustive, you expect it to trail blue smoke.
Where else could you learn than Cuba imported 22,577 cars and trucks – mostly from the United States – in 1952, that Fulgencio Batista’s son (also Fulgencio) drove a 1956 Corvette, or that Matanzas, unlike most Cuban towns, preferred Fords over Chevrolets?
Yet Richard Schweid’s 2004 work is equally rich with anecdote, from accounts of riding in Havana’s 10-peso taxis to dealing with a black marketer whose hides his stash of government stamps in the air cleaner of a ’57 Chevy. With these stories, Schweid’s examination of the role of the automobile in Cuba’s popular culture thrums along like a time-tested Plymouth.
What’s missing – thankfully – is the over-reaching search for significance that so often figures in outside discussions of the Cuban roadscape. Sure, Schweid acknowledges the obvious incongruity – the emblematic U.S. cars of the 1950s, he writes, are the North American heroes of the Cuban Revolution – but further notes that, “for Cubans, the irony of depending for much of their automobile transport on pre-1960s cars built by the enemy merits little more than a shrug of the shoulders.”
Schweid is a Tennessean who now lives in Barcelona, and his writing is replete with expat perspective. You sense he abhors some aspects of Cuban communism – the restrictions on movement and free speech, the petty interferences – yet he is quick to recognize the Revolution’s achievements in ensuring education, medical care and a basic standard of living for all of its citizens.
He is, he admits, no mechanic, but he knows a Frazer from a Fairlane, and he understands the ability of a 1950s car to summon a “profound sense of nostalgia and a pleasing sense of continuity.”
Che’s Chevrolet, Fidel’s Oldsmobile (the title refers to the post-Revolution rides of the Cuban leaders) is as thoughtful as it is thorough. Car buffs and students of history – so often one and the same – will delight in it. Here is one place to find a copy: abebooks.com

It's a bumper. It's a grille. It's both!

    Two more from the archives, again, I suspect, the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí Havana. They appear to have been taken in the early to mid-1950s; locations unknown. The commercial signs in the top photo – Zenith, Norge, Du Pont, Essolube – would have disappeared after the revolution, but in most other ways these scenes probably differ little from the present. In the lower photo, check out the 1950 Buick on the left with that year’s bold new “bumper grille.” Yikes!
    If you would like to know more about Buicks of that era – and really, who wouldn’t? – here are two good sources:
    www.buicks.net
    auto.howstuffworks.com

Don't blame Dwight

It’s widely held that the flow of American cars to Cuba was halted by the ban on exports enacted by President Dwight Eisenhower on Oct. 13, 1960.
In fact, as author Richard Schweid reports in Che’s Chevrolet, Fidel’s Oldsmobile (University of North Carolina Press, 2004), the tap began closing more than a year earlier, when Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government froze all credit after taking power in January 1959.
Credit, at both the business and consumer level, is integral to auto sales. Without it, just 3,264 cars were imported in 1959, with most of them arriving in the early months of that year. Of the 1960 models that began production in late 1959, only a shipment of Oldsmobiles and a scattering of Chevrolets would reach the island (above must be one of them -- an Impala four-door sedan, now part of the state fleet of classic taxis). No American cars would be imported in 1960.
For the car-watcher, this is key. Had the car shipments continued until the embargo dropped like a palm-frond curtain across the Straits of Florida, the streets of Cuba would look very different. We would see 1960 models -- and even some early ’61s -- reflecting the cleaner Detroit design aesthetic of the new decade. Fins receded and then disappeared; bodies became lower and wider.
And there would be the new “compacts” – the Ford Falcon, Dodge Valiant and Chevrolet Corvair – that were the response of U.S. manufacturers to an economic downtown at home and increased small car competition from abroad.
Instead we see, well, you know: the big, picturesque American cars of the 1950s, all chrome and curves.
The styling revolution never arrived.

When the streets were paved with mob money

I believe this archival photo comes from the Biblioteca Nacional José Martí Havana; please correct me if I’m wrong. The scene is a paving project on La Rampa (The Slope) in Havana’s Vedado district, circa 1955. Although much of Cuba, then, as now, lived in poverty, the flow of cash from sources such as the casinos operated by U.S. crime families paid for smooth streets and the big cars that rode on them.
Across from the ESSO station is the flagship showroom of Ambar Motors, operator of Cuba’s largest chain of General Motors dealerships. Many of the Cadillacs and Buicks still running in Havana today would have come from this showroom. Here is how the same intersection looked recently: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/5204839

From Autopista Nacional to Zil: A Cuban automotive glossary

Autopista Nacional – Multi-lane national National motorway; extends through much of the island. Started in 1970s and still not complete, although a new 60-kilometre stretch in the central provinces was promised for 2009.
Cacharro – Old heap, jalopy (generally applied to pre-1960 vehicles that remain in daily use). Also: almendrone.
Camello – Adapted from a tractor-trailer, the “Camel” bus is named for its humped roof and holds as many as 300 people. The harsh-riding Camello (no air-ride suspension here) has given way in Havana to more modern buses, but reportedly remains in service in other regions. (Update, February 2009: They are; I saw one just outside Havana.)
Carretera Central – Central Highway, a two-lane, 1,119-kilometre route opened in 1930s.
Carro – Car, cart, wheeled means of transport.
Coco taxi – Coconut-shaped, three-wheeled tourist conveyance.
Colectivo – See peso taxi.
Cuidador – Guard for parked vehicles (portion of fees charged are paid to the state).
Fotingo – Ford Model T, from “Foot ‘n Go” for the T’s three-pedal transmission controls.
Gran Car – State-owned company that supplies chauffered classic cars for tourists (also used by Cubans for special occasions).
Guagua – “Wah-wah.” Slang for bus.
Haciendo bottelo – Hitchhiking (“making the bottle”).
Harlista – Owner of Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
KrAZ – Heavy-duty Ukraine-built truck. KrAZ-257 built from mid-1960s until the1980s remains in wide use in Cuba.
Malecón – A seven-kilometre parade of people and cars, the Malecón traces Havana’s seawall and is easily the most famous boulevard in Cuba.
Mecánico – Mechanic.
Moskvich 1500 – Built by Moskvitch (yes, the spelling is different), the 1500 is similar to the boxy Lada 1300, but unlike the Fiat 124-based Lada, is built from its own tooling.
Peso taxi – Taxi that picks up and drops off passengers on a fixed route in Havana for a fee of 10 or 20 Cuban pesos.
Radio Bemba – “Lip radio” or word-of-mouth. Helps owners locate parts.
Rutero – Fixed-route taxi. See peso taxi.
Traspaso – Paper that allows a pre-1960 vehicle to be bought and sold privately.
Yutong – Chinese manufacturer that supplies buses to Cuba.
Zil 130 – Soviet-built truck seen everywhere in Cuba.

Matanzas, Madonna

Another mystery (Matanzas 2008).