The light burns brighter


Chevrolet row: A new proposal for an international tour.

  THE RENEWAL of U.S.-Cuba relations, however tentative, has been a tonic for Rick Shnitzler of TailLight Diplomacy.
   Shnitzler is a co-founder of the Philadelphia group, which has long pressed for closer ties between vintage car owners in the two nations. But by 2013, with the political divide seemingly as deep as ever, the effort was sputtering, Michael Matza reports in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
   That changed with December's surprise announcement, and an invigorated Shnitzler now has a new proposal: bring a select number of Cuban cars and their owners to the United States – and perhaps other countries too – for a friendship tour.
Organizing such a car-culture exchange would be a huge task, of course, going beyond even Shnitzler's earlier call to include Cuban cars in Detroit's yearly Woodward Dream Cruise. But the "inveterate dreamer" is undaunted as he talks up the idea with government, media and the antique-auto community.
  And at a time when Cuban and American delegations are meeting face-to-face for historic normalization talks, everything seems possible.

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