CARISTAS

Toufik Benhamiche tours Havana before the boating accident. Facebook photo AS LONG noted here, visitors should think twice about driving a car in Cuba. Get into an accident and you could find yourself trapped on the island for months of judicial process – followed, perhaps, by a jail sentence. This advice applies to more than cars. Toufik Benhamiche, a 47-year-old Montrealer, has been unable to leave Cuba since a July 2017 boating accident in which a fellow Canadian tourist was killed. This week, Benhamiche learned he must remain on the island for at least another year fighting a criminal negligence conviction that if upheld could see him jailed for a further four years. A statement released by his family on Dec. 26 said Benhamiche was convicted a second time by the provincial court of Ciego de Avila after Cuba's Supreme Court overturned an initial finding of guilt. Benhamiche, living in a rented apartment, is launching a new appeal while calling on the government of Canad

   NEXT TO the Willys Jeep, the Toyota Land Cruiser 40 series (best known as the FJ40) could be the most common vehicle in eastern Cuba. Rugged and long-lived, it serves as a ranch truck in the countryside and a taxi in the cities. Rounded grille identifies this soft-top FJ40 in Santiago as a 1978 or earlier model. Battery is mounted behind the bumper of this J40 in the seaside village of Siboney, perhaps so it can be easily removed at night as an anti-theft measure.

A 1950 Chevy makes its smoky way along Francisco Vicente Aguilera in Santiago.

​ Open-air 1958 Chevrolet seen in Havana in 2011 was once a hardtop. More cars are losing their roofs for the tourist trade, according to Havana writer Conner Gorry.     CONNER GORRY is flipping her lid over the number of convertible conversions in Cuba's largest city.    The American ex-pat and Here Is Havana author says collective taxis are being pulled from their routes serving locals to have their roofs sliced off so they can ferry visitors on open-top tours of the capital.    Her fantasy? Watching "fun- and sun-seeking tourists from Kansas jump into the convertible and instead of traveling around ‘Disneyland Havana,’ they’re taken into the dark, gritty depths of Jesús María, La Timba, Fanguito, Los Pocitos and Coco Solo, ending up in Mantilla … and left there."    She bemoans the "incalculable" environmental damage from "all these cars without catalytic converters" – perhaps unaware that most every vehicle in Cuba runs on leaded gasolin

Front bumper with 'towel rack' is an original feature.        MOST VOLKSWAGEN Beetles in Cuba appear to be of 1970s vintage and almost certainly came from Brazil, where the original Type 1 body style remained in production long after it was retired elsewhere.    This Santiago bug, however, dates to 1961, according to a notation painted on its rear deck lid.    Many of its parts – the headlights and taillights, the "VW1302" badge, the housing for the rear licence plate lamp – are clearly from a later era. But the hole on the hood just below the centre chrome strip confirms the Beetle's age. It's the mounting point for the Wolfsburg crest (missing on this car) that was dropped after 1962. With metric speedometer, this bug wasn't intended for the U.S. market. 'VW1302' badge is at least a decade newer than the car.