A beauty isn’t it Cakey. I‘ll be honest it did cross my mind more than once as to what the chances, process and hassle would be in exporting something like this on a personal and commercial basis.
I’ll admit that the "this time next year we'll be millionaires" narrative flowed through my head on occasions when I saw cars of that quality

These things are literally everywhere over in Cuba, everyone has heard about the old American classics in Cuba but what surprised me was how prevalent they are, in my estimation possibly every 5th car is one and that statistic is not just restricted to city’s such as Havana. (For those with an interest in cars; I would say that one of the other most common cars in Cuba was the old Lada Riva and you don’t see those very often anywhere else).

Admittedly condition of these American cars varies a lot from sheds to perfection as you can see in my photo’s and nothing under the skin is stock despite the high quality of refurb you can see. The Cubans call their old American classics Frankencars because they are made up of bits of this and bits of that, certainly all the owners I spoke to about their cars were running modern Toyota diesel engines and the same went for brakes, suspension and so on. Effectively any perishable running gear and oily components were absolutely any make and origin, as long as they were not American due to the USA embargo on Cuba.

Ive had over 50 yanks in my time and heavy chevys were always my favourites while my mates were all mopar nuts
then I ended up with a 1941 Ford coupe that I imported from south carolina which was steeped in history ,owned by Burt Lancaster when new .

Wow Cakey, so you really know your stuff when it comes Yank metal.

Have you ever seen a period photo of your Ford in the ownership of Burt?
That would really be something to cherish.


One photo I took in Cuba that I haven't posted yet (not the best photo technically to be fair but a favourite) is great because it has three old classics at a junction to a main road and if you make it black and white and ignore that a more modern van has slightly crept in to shoot it would be impossible to guess the decade.

You may like this car, be interested to know what it is, as although I am an out and out petrolhead my knowledge of American cars is brief to say the least:

Black Cab

its a 59 Caddy ..........I think

Dusty
Great B&W photo.
Its a 59 Cadillac Coupe de Ville like this:
http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C192779

Many thanks Apache!

Great set and an interesting read too.