Cool cars in Cuba? Who knew?


   JUST LIKE Columbus “discovered” lands that already were inhabited, a U.S.-based website, Hagerty’s Cars That Matter, is touting its discovery of a Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing and other exotic cars in Cuba.
   “Finally,” says the breathless blog, “there’s something more than rumor and innuendo.”
   CARISTAS readers, of course, have known about the Gullwing for many months, and readers of Michael E. Ware’s Automobiles Lost & Found (Haynes Publishing, 2008), will have been aware of it still longer – though not as long as the Cubans who have been the car’s custodians since the 1950s.
   Offered on Hagerty’s website are several photos of the rusting Mercedes that are similar to Mr. Ware’s shots published here and in Automobiles Lost & Found. The site also provides pictures of a 300SL roadster, an Arbath Zagato “Double Bubble” coupe and a “Vignale-bodied mystery car” that again were already documented in the book, where the third car is correctly identified as a 1951 Maserati A6 GLS with Frua body.
   The website says it was given the photos by “a friend” and reports – somewhat disingenously, one might suspect – that “we do not know if they are still in Cuba, their location in Cuba, if they are for sale, if there are more, or how to get in touch with the owner(s).”
   Discover this, Hagarty’s. They aren’t for sale.
See the Hagarty’s report here.

See CARISTAS Gullwing posts:

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