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WELCOME TO CUBA:
SET YOUR WATCH BACK FIFTY YEARS
OUR STEP BACK IN TIME DIDN’T OCCUR AS WE STEPPED ONTO CUBAN SOIL, BUT ACTUALLY BEFORE WE LEFT MIAMI. THE JET THAT WOULD TAKE US TO HAVANA, JUST OVER 200 MILES AWAY, WAS OWNED AND OPERATED BY HAVANA AIR BUT LIVERIED AS EASTERN AIR LINES. YOU REMEMBER—THE AIRLINE THAT WENT BANKRUPT TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO? DAVID NESSLEIN, CEO OF HAVANA AIR, ACQUIRED THE EASTERN NAME AND LOGO, AND NOW OPERATES “EASTERN” AS A CHARTER AIRLINE FLYING FROM MIAMI TO HAVANA AND BACK DAILY.
WE RECEIVED PERMISSION TO VISIT CUBA TO CONDUCT RESEARCH ABOUT THE COUNTRY’S AUTOMOTIVE HISTORY.
The prettiest cars, mostly convertibles, await tourists on the plaza outside the Parque Central hotel in central Havana.
Uber it’s not—a 1952 Buick taxi prowls the back streets of Havana in search of a fare. This is likely a taxi for Cuban residents, since tourists prefer the shiny convertible cabs. wellsie82/Getty Images
Although we would have preferred to visit the island in January, February, or March—when the weather must resemble paradise—July, with its heat and humidity, was the only time that all three of our schedules were clear.
The reason we were going to Cuba was specifically to research this book. Our car-guy friend Wellington Morton had the week off and offered to accompany us on this trip.
We walked down the stairs of our Eastern jet, across the tarmac, and into the lobby of Havana’s José Martí International Airport, where the scene in front of us could have been a movie set from a 1950s flick about a banana republic. Flights from around the world use the larger, more modern terminal across the runway, but flights from the United States are relegated to this smaller, antiquated, and rundown one. No doubt it’s punishment for the embargo that the United States put in place in 1962 after Fidel Castro came into power. We’d soon discover that the worn-out airport was representative of the condition of just about everything else we’d see in the country.
We noticed this Ferrari decal on the fender of a Russian Lada. It is an accessory that even Cubans can afford!
Once we retrieved our luggage, which for no good reason took way too long (probably more punishment for Americans), we walked through the exit and toward the curb. We passed waving people who were probably seeing a family member from the United States for the first time in fifty years, taxi drivers holding crudely printed signs, and well-dressed tour operators ready to whisk away affluent vacationers to exotic resorts on the far ends of the island.
Then we saw the guards holding machine guns.
Once we made it through that crowd, we finally noticed what we’d come here to see: old cars that looked appropriate in front of the sixty-year-old airport terminal building we had just exited. There were pink Ford Thunderbirds, finned Cadillacs, Plymouth station wagons, red Chevy convertibles, mag wheels on nearly everything, and Ferrari stickers on vintage Ramblers.
Welcome to Cuba, the country that time forgot. The flight from Miami was just forty-five minutes, but that Eastern Air Lines jet had doubled as a time machine, bringing us and the rest of the passengers back in time more than half a century.
US banks? Nope.
US credit cards? Nope.
US-friendly ATMs? Personal checks? Cell phones? Nope, nope, nope.
The Parque Central is a European-style hotel that is located in the middle of Havana’s business and tourist district. Taxis are parked out front to take you wherever you desire.
We stayed in the wonderful Hotel Parque Central. It might not have been the most authentic hotel on the island, but both the air conditioning and the mojitos were cold.
(Though US cell phones don’t currently work on the antiquated Cuban system, if you have a Cuban friend, they can buy a phone for you to use during your visit. If you don’t have that friend to expedite the process, however, it could take you a few hours.)
Thankfully we took care of many of those incidentals before we left the States. And thankfully we had pockets full of American cash that could be exchanged at a rate of nearly one to one for Cuban convertible pesos (CUCs), the currency used for visitors to the island. We would trade our Yankee bucks for CUCs at a currency kiosk in the hotel for a 13 percent fee, but we’d also be able to purchase a great Cuban sandwich for just CUC$4 and the best mojito or piña colada we’d ever tasted for just CUC$5.
On the way to the hotel, we saw a couple hundred cars that could have been taken from the set of the early Leave It to Beaver television series. Initially, we got whiplash as we looked at every old car we passed. “Look, a Buick Roadmaster.” “A Chrysler 300.” “Look, there’s a 1953 Ford Ranch Wagon.” “Ooh, that’s a sweet ’57 Bel Air.”
As we would soon discover, neck wrenching was not necessary; we would see many, many more vintage cars over the course of our stay.
Just a few blocks from the elegant Parque Central, this is a typical street scene. The 1958 Plymouth and 1956 Cadillac are parked next to once-elegant buildings, now in need of restoration.
