CARISTAS

Caught on camera: a first-series Volkswagen Type 2 Deluxe Bus.     SO TAKEN  was I with the Sport Suburban of the previous post , I didn't realize until checking my photos that I had also captured a first-generation Volkswagen Type 2 van, or bus.    When I was young, the Type 2 (the Beetle was VW's Type 1 model, of course) was a regular sight. As a cargo hauler that could double as the family car, it offered compelling value to those willing to accept acceleration as slow as a Bavarian boat ride and the general stigma of owning an odd foreign bus-truck thing.    I remember my father muttering when we would be caught in a line of cars behind one clattering up a hill. It's a wonder that the signs for the passing lanes finally introduced on the Trans-Canada Highway didn't bear an icon of a Volkswagen bus.     Wikipedia photo. The Type 2 came in numerous versions including a pickup, a rusty example of which ran into the back of ou...

Badging, intricate trim proclaim this wagon's top-of-the-line status.    HERE'S ANOTHER confuser from Chrysler.    First, the Sport Suburban script on the side of this station wagon could surprise anyone who associates the Suburban name only with Chevrolet trucks. In fact, "suburban" began as a generic description for light commercial vehicles with extra seats and a closed cargo area, and has been applied to models from Studebaker, Nash, DeSoto, Plymouth, Dodge and GMC as well as Chevy (where it's been in continuous use since 1935).    The Sport part is harder to explain. The Sport Suburban was Plymouth's top-line wagon in 1956, with a newly available 277-cubic-inch V-8 but no particular performance-oriented equipment that I know of, unless you count the "Sportspun Tweed" upholstery with metallic threads. Plymouth wagon wears its Dodge front styling well.      Though nicely proportioned, it looked less sporty, in fact, than Plym...

Export-model 1957 Dodge makes a dramatic parting statement.    FINS – THE   KIND  that are attached to sharks – have been sighted in nervous-making numbers this year in places like California, Australia and South Africa.    Fins – the kind that are attached to cars – are always seen in quantity in Cuba, where they induce a much more positive reaction, at least among visitors (the locals just yawn).    The impressive examples shown here were observed on a 1957 sedan of the exportus plodgis strain, meaning it's a Plymouth-Dodge amalgam built by Chrysler for non-U.S. markets.    Inspired by the Jet Age, the automotive tailfin craze peaked with the enormous rear protrusions of the 1959 Cadillac ( non loquuntur dorsum ). But if General Motors won the battle in height, Chrysler led in variety, with designs like the emphatic pillars above, the delicate "floating taillights" of the 1955 Imperial ( luxuria rex ) and any number of intricate...

   A CONSTANT STREAM of outsiders try to take Cuba's measure. Few succeed. An island that sets communism to a Latin beat is no easy place to figure out – especially when the island itself is adjusting to a renewed bond with a powerful neighbour.     One who would appear to understand Cuba, however, is Anthony Bourdain , star of CNN's Parts Unknown food and travel program. In the premier episode of the sixth season, the urbane host visits Havana and Santiago, sampling dishes that will make your mouth water even as he engages Cubans from all walks on their hopes and fears.    Some of us interpret Cuba by its cars. For Bourdain, a chef before all else, the measure, of course, is food, and the arrival of sushi alongside the beans and rice is a potent symbol of the nation's change. Still, the meals are merely an entry point to a broader examination of history and culture that speaks to painstaking research by the host and production company.   ...

Central casting: Demetrio Montalvo with sons Michel, left, and Hernan and the family's 1953 Oldsmobile taxi. Photos courtesy of Discovery Communications.     WE ALL understand that "reality show" is an oxymoron. Beyond the obvious effect of observation on the behaviour of the subject, there's the need – fed by the shortness of our attention spans – for every moment of these television programs to be interesting, even if real life doesn't work that way.    The consequence, then, are shows that range from the selective – edited reality, which we're usually willing to accept – to the staged and scripted, which we're unlikely to believe but still watch if they are unceasingly entertaining.    Cuban Chrome , the eight-part series that ran on Discovery in the U.S. this summer and now is airing in Canada, falls into the staged-and-scripted category. The premise – three Habaneros rushing to restore their classic vehicles in time for the one day a year a...

Rare sight: A 1955 Chevrolet Nomad two-door wagon     SOME TIME back, CARISTAS reader Paul voiced a hope that any Chevrolet Nomad in Cuba had not been irreversibly altered, and I realized that I had never come across one of Chevy's delightful two-door station wagons on the island.    This was surprising, given the presence in Cuba of late-1950s Corvettes, Continental Mark IIs and other classics produced in far fewer numbers than the 22,000 Nomads built between 1955 and '57.    Surprising too in that station wagons would appear to have sold well in Cuba in the '50s, though perhaps Cuban wagon buyers, even more than their U.S. counterparts, valued utility over style.    Then, riding on a bus through Matanzas – one of my favourite car-spotting locales – I glimpsed a gold-over-copper '55 Nomad at a traffic light. My camera was in video mode and I wasted time switching to the photo setting, and as a result didn't get a good shot in either mo...