So many questions

    Most of this Havana peso taxi is, I believe, a 1980s Ford fullsize van. That indented accent line above the rocker panel is too distinctive for it to be anything else. The wraparound taillamps must be later additions.
   At first I thought it was the Club Wagon model, but then I realized the sliding side windows are also additions, and probably came from a bus. The rub strips? From a tree.
   But the grille, hood and front fenders? International sprang to mind, no doubt because the word International is painted on the side (along with Fault Line, which I take as ironic statement). But no, these bits aren't from any International truck I can identify.
    So what, then, was the donor? A Soviet military carrier? A British bread van? Or is that bold beak some fiberglass add-on kit, like the Rolls-Royce prows people used to bolt on to their Volkswagen Beetles?
One thing I know. Even without the wooden rub strips, this van would be unique.

That should buff out

    A closer look at Ernest Hemingway's 1955 Chrysler New Yorker DeLuxe convertible.

                                                                                 Photo by Ouno Design, used by permission.

The old man and his Chrysler

                                                                    Photo by Ouno Design, used by permission.

    Papa owned a Lincoln, a Buick, but at heart, Papa was a Chrysler man. His Wheeler Playmate cabin cruiser, the Pilar, had two engines. The 50-horsepower Lycoming ran alone when he sought marlin and sailfish and German submarines. The Chrysler Crown reduction engine added its 70 horsepower for the runs between islands, throttles open, fans expelling the volatile fumes from belowdecks.
    Early on in Cuba Papa ferried his son Gregory's baseball team, the Gigi Stars, in a Chrysler. Decades later the boys, now old men, would remember jamming in, a jumble of brown arms and legs, for the games at the Club de Cazadores.

       JFK Library Collection.

    In 1953 he bought his fourth and last wife, Mary, a Cranbrook convertible. It was from Chrysler's Plymouth line, a yellow car with wire wheels.
    Then in 1955 Ernest Hemingway paid $3,924 for a Chrysler New Yorker DeLuxe convertible. To the Cubans, seeing it driving between Finca Vigía – the Lookout Farm – and the Pilar's berth in Cojimar, it looked red and white. The manufacturer said Navajo Orange over Desert Sand.
    In July 1960 Papa left Cuba for the last time, carrying his depression, his accident scars, leaving his boat, his convertible, his 57 cats. A year later at his other home in Ketchum, Idaho, he pulled the triggers of his shotgun and was dead.
    Finca Vigía came into government hands. Seized by Castro's Communists, said some. Donated by Mary, others said. Today it is a museum where tourists pay 3 CUC to look through the windows at Hemingway's animal trophies and bathroom scale and 8,000 books – 5 CUC more if they want to take photos. Under a nearby shelter gleams the Pilar, a Viking boat awaiting its chieftain.
    The Chrysler New Yorker? Hemingway's driver, Augustin Nuñez Gutiérrez, took it away, the stories said, and hid it from the authorities who wanted it for the museum. Hid it well.
    Yet in late 2010 the carcass of a Chrysler convertible, sides eaten by rust, soft top long missing, was dragged to the Lookout Farm. Of the 950 New Yorker DeLuxe convertibles made in 1953, said the government, this is Hemingway's.
    Confirmation comes from Christopher Baker. On his Moon Travel Guides blog he tells of seeing the Chrysler's serial number and the matching number on the insurance policy Hemingway took out. He tells of museum director Ada Rosa Alfonso's discovery that Hemingway's doctor, José Luis Herrera Sotalongo, had the Chrysler from 1961 to 1973. Then it passed to the doctor's son. Then to "a long list of connected individuals that ends with the last known owner, Leopoldo Nuñez Gutiérrez, in whose garage the vehicle was found." That final name perhaps pointing to some truth in the earlier stories.
    The convertible's bodywork will be repaired and repainted in the correct colours, Baker says. Its leather upholstery will be renewed. Its 331-cubic-inch hemi V-8 will fire once more.
    And then it will go on display near the Pilar, where visitors can see the car and the boat and imagine a different end to the Hemingway story. One in which the Cojimar villagers in the darkness hear one Chrysler engine stop and another start. And later, rising to prepare for the day, see the flash at sea that foretells the dawn.

Above, Mary Hemingway, driver Juan Lopez and the 1953 Plymouth Cranbrook. Below, the Pilar. Both: Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

December 2012 update: Starsky, Papa and Hutch – David Soul helps bring the Hemingway New Yorker back to life.

Christopher P. Baker declares Cuba officially open to Americans

    You read it here second ─ Cuban travel now is open to every U.S. citizen.
    Or so reports Christopher Baker on the Moon Travel Guides site, citing revised regulations published April 21 that he says confirm U.S. president Barack Obama's desire to ease the longstanding restrictions on travel between the two countries.

    "Pack your bags!" adds the intrepid travel writer. "Finally, it's time to go to Cuba."
    Well, maybe you shouldn't be stuffing socks into the Samsonite just yet. American access to Cuba does seem to have become easier, but it's hardly unfettered.
    Students, for example, now can travel to the island for course work for academic credit without first seeking written approval from the U.S. government. This pre-authorization was already available to Americans with close relatives in Cuba, and to journalists, professional researchers and others.
    Another change is the restoration of a provision allowing "educational exchanges," which Baker says can be as broadly defined as a visit by a minor baseball team to play Cuban club teams.

    But the students will need sponsorship by an accredited U.S. college. And those organizing educational exchanges will need written permission from the government before the exchange can take place.
    Education, you'll notice, is the key here. Or in Baker's words: "In essence, for the first time since the Clinton administration, virtually anyone with a serious rationale with an interest in learning can now find a way to visit Cuba legally."
    But what if you just want to sit on the seawall in Havana and watch old automobiles rumble along the Malecón? That's educational, to be sure, but would it be enough to secure the necessary sponsorship or authorization?
    Worry not, American students of automotive history. The Caristas College of Car-cheology stands prepared to fully support your expedition to the Great Cuban Car Show.
    Letters of support? Certificates of sponsorship? Yours for only a modest fee (somewhat extra if you also wish a Doctorate of Divinity that allows you to perform marriages).
   But, you ask, what if an official questions whether Caristas College is indeed an accredited U.S. school? To which we respond ─ Hey look! Isn't that a '52 Cadillac Series 62 sedan?

Top photo: 1955 Chevrolet sedan; centre: 1946-48 Plymouth; above: 1952 Cadillac.