Hail to the chief


President Obama would likely be quite comfortable in this Cuban Cadillac.
    PLAYING ALONG in a skit for Cuban television, U.S. President Barack Obama asked the comedian known as Pánfilo to pick him up at the Havana airport in an almendrón.
   "We have a lot of almendróns," responded Pánfilo, who with grey beard and Tyrolean hat could be a Latin version of Red Green. "My neighbour Chacón has a '58 Chevrolet."
   Obama's actual ride for the first visit to Cuba by a U.S. president in nearly nine decades is his own state limousine – a much-reinforced Cadillac sedan known as "The Beast."
   Should the presidential Caddy break down, however, and should Pánfilo's neighbour's Chevrolet not be available, this almond-shaped 1958 Cadillac from Santa Cruz del Norte, not far from Havana, could serve as a worthy substitute.

Enough original chrome remains to identify the '58 Caddy as an upscale Sedan de Ville.

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