One smokin' Lada!
Russia's state-owned Ria Novosti news agency provides this English-language report. More than a bit of cheerleading going on, but still, a Lada fun. (Sorry.)
Posts
Two more owners, one final name
Docked in Bremerhaven: 'inadequate' sanitary facilities. ( Last of a series) The navy wanted two dock landing ships, and it didn't want to wait the five or six years it would take to build them. A partial solution seemed at hand. The S/S City of Havana , a onetime dock landing ship converted into an automobile ferry, was available, and could be returned to its original purpose. That the navy belonged to Germany, and the City of Havana , ex HMS Northway , ex HMS Cutlass , had been built to aid in that nation's defeat, would not have raised eyebrows. Warships have traded between combatants — past, future, even current — throughout history. And the Second World War, though hardly forgotten, was by 1962 a sealed chapter, supplanted in public attention by a Cold War in which Germany, or at least the 11 states then making up the federal republic, was on the side of democracy. The mission of its navy: control the approaches ...
That ship has sailed
(Second of a series) One day, the restrictions on travel between the United States and Cuba will end. When it arrives, business people in Key West, Florida, hope their city can again be the U.S. gateway to the island just 94 miles to the south. The resumption of automobile ferry service between Key West and Cuba could help make that happen. But it won't be on the S/S City of Havana , the steamship that carried cars and their passengers between the two nations from March 1956 to October 1960. The City of Havana was built for a different purpose. It was launched at Newport News, Virginia, in late 1943 as HMS Cutlass , one of four dock landing ships earmarked for Britain's Royal Navy under the U.S. Lend-Lease Act. Unadorned and awkward of line, the 458-foot vessel would one day earn mention on a website dedicated to the "ugly ships" of the world . But it was wartime-practical, with a deep centre well that could be fl...
The last cars out of Cuba
Returning to home soil. Photo courtesy of Key West History. (First of a series) It's Oct. 31, 1960, and the SS City of Havana , an automobile and passenger ferry that began life as a Second World War landing craft carrier, is easing to its berth at Safe Harbor in Key West, Florida. Sixteen years earlier, this vessel, then known as HMS Northway , carried amphibious trucks and their Canadian and British crews to Juno Beach in the Normandy Invasion. But on this day, those aboard are fleeing, not approaching, conflict. Of the 287 passengers, 232 are Cuban citizens who hold United States residence permits, key to their own economic and political safe harbour. Also aboard are 86 cars, of which most belong to the U.S. embassy in Havana. After imposing an embargo on trade with Cuba in retaliation for the Castro government's seizure of U.S. property and alignment with the Soviet Union, the United States now is cutting diplomatic ties. This photo...
The view at Bacunayagua
El Mirador de Bacunayagua overlooks Cuba's highest bridge and the Yumuri Valley. AN ELEGANCE of concrete, the Bacunayagua Bridge soars over the seemingly bottomless gorge that separates the provinces of Mayabeque and Matanzas. And higher yet is El Mirador de Bacunayagua, the coffee bar/gift shop/piña colada stand that overlooks the bridge and the great, green Yumurí Valley. El Mirador reminds me of the Castle Rock lookout over Lake Huron near St. Ignace, Michigan. I remember riding down Interstate 75 in the back of the family '66 Buick Le Sabre, hoping we'd stop at Castle Rock, or at the nearby "Mystery Spot" where gravity was said to be more suggestion than law (and which I now know is a "tilt-induced visual illusion," another secret spoiled by Wikipedia ). But never once do I recall my parents pulling into a tourist trap. I've turned into El Mirador, more than once. It's cheesy, of course, but that's part of its charm....
Cuban women drivers
Photo: Michael R. Roy It's almost always a man at the wheel in Cuba (apart from coco taxis, which, come to think of it, have handlebars, not steering wheels), but Michael Roy caught this image of a woman at the helm of a shiny-as-a-new-penny '55 Chevrolet. And the driver appears to be using her turn indicator — in Cuba, another uncommon sight. See Baby You Can't Drive My Car . See Baby You CAN Drive My Coco Taxi .
Post No. 101
Like a '56 Chevy, Caristas keeps ticking along. 1956 Chevrolet 210 four-door sedan in Varadero .