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TWO AUTO MUSEUMS

CUBA’S STREETS ARE LIKE A LIVING MUSEUM WITH SIXTY-PLUS-YEAR-OLD CARS SCOOTING BACK AND FORTH IN A NEVER-ENDING METALLIC SYMPHONY. BUT BECAUSE THE COUNTRY RESPECTS ITS HISTORY, AND HAS NUMEROUS MUSEUMS THAT DISPLAY EVERYTHING FROM REVOLUTIONARY WAR RELICS TO MODERN ART, IT IS NOT SURPRISING THAT THERE ARE ALSO TWO AUTO MUSEUMS, SEPARATED BY ABOUT 600 MILES.

DEPÓSITO DEL AUTOMÓVIL

Within two hours of touching down at the Havana airport during our first trip to Cuba in 2009, we visited the Depósito del Automóvil, Havana’s antique car museum. We thought this would be the ideal place to begin our search for old cars, plus director Eduardo Mesejo Maestre was our only English-speaking contact on the island until we connected with our tour guide, Abel.

We were naïve during that first trip, thinking we could actually “sneak” around the capital and find a warehouse that might actually contain Fidel Castro’s own cars—in other words, explore “Castro’s garage.” But once we saw the guards with machine guns around the city, and heard the stories about foreigners who were sitting in prison because they tried to explore around the executive mansion, we decided that was not such a good idea. So the museum would have to suffice.

“Fidel used to drive Oldsmobiles in 1957 and ’58,” said Eduardo. “And he drove Soviet cars, including Soviet Jeeps, after the revolution. But Fidel is not a car enthusiast. He doesn’t care about cars.”

Eduardo did tell us that current Cuban president Raül Castro favors BMWs, though.

This 1926 Rolls-Royce sports French bodywork by Letourneur et Marchand. It was kept in storage after the revolution and presented to the museum when it opened in 1980.

This photo of the Havana auto museum was taken during our first trip to Cuba. When a portion of the building collapsed and destroyed some of the cars, it was moved to another location in the same historic neighborhood.

The Depósito del Automóvil is humble when compared to most antique car museums in America. But even though the cars are somewhat underwhelming, some have interesting histories. Admission to the museum, which opened in 1980, costs CUC$1, and children are free. Visitors are treated to an inventory of about forty cars, trucks, and motorcycles.

The museum is located in the historic district of Havana, but it changed locations between our first and most recent trips because the original building’s roof collapsed.

“The humidity and lack of maintenance caused the timbers to rot and the roof to collapse,” said Eduardo. Several of the cars, including a couple of Model A Fords, received body damage ranging from minor dings to total demolition. The museum is now located in an attractive waterside building just a couple blocks from the original location.

This 1915 Mack truck, a Senior model, was in use until 1970, still giving its owner reliable service at fifty-five years old.

Eduardo Mesejo is proud of the progress his museum staff is making on the country’s oldest vehicle, a 1905 Cadillac.

The Depósito’s inventory includes two cars that were instrumental in the 1959 revolution: the green 1960 Chevrolet Bel Air driven by Castro coconspirator Che Guevara and the 1959 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 of Camilo Cienfuegos. Some of the other notable cars in the museum include:

ROLLS-ROYCE PHANTOM

The star of the collection is the 1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom, with the body fabricated by Letourneur et Marchand of France. Eduardo told us that this car was found abandoned after the revolution and kept safe by the government until the museum opened in 1980.

The Rolls is not in pristine condition, as you would imagine a similar car to look in the States. It is simply a used, unrestored car that is given a sponge bath every day to remove the caustic dust caused by the many building renovations occurring in the area.

BRASS-ERA CADDY

The other car that Eduardo is particularly excited about is the 1905 Cadillac, which was apparently in continuous use on Cuban roads until forty years ago. It was one of the first cars to be brought into the museum.

“It was an everyday car,” said Eduardo. “It would drive around the Havana streets until the 1970s.” He also told us in 2009 that the Cadillac was scheduled to undergo a complete and thorough restoration.

“The previous owner of the Cadillac received a new Russian Lada in exchange for his old car. This will be the first professional restoration of a classic car in Cuban history. We received much of the technical information from car collectors in the Philadelphia area. The engineering knowledge of this car was very important to have before we begin restoration,” he said. Eduardo, who has a mechanical engineering degree and is working on his doctorate, takes a very academic approach to historic vehicles.

“When verifying an historic car, first deny, then investigate, third, believe.”

The Cadillac’s chassis and suspension have been sandblasted and epoxy painted, and a local woodworker has been contracted to rebuild the four-seater body. But not much work had progressed between our 2009 and 2015 visits to the museum, likely due to a complete lack of a budget.

FANGIO’S MASER

Probably the most intriguing car in the Depósito is not a car at all but a prop.

Parked front and center on the museum floor is what appears to be a bright blue Maserati. It appears, in fact, to be the racer that five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio drove in the 1957 Grand Prix.

It is not a real car, however. It is a reproduction shell that resembles Fangio’s Maserati. It was built by an Argentine film company for a movie they were producing about the great driver.

“It is made of fiberglass,” said Eduardo. “Many people who come to the museum see it from a distance and don’t know it isn’t real. We actually painted it in the street with a sponge. Part of the suspension is from a Citroën; it has a plywood chassis and homemade wire wheels.

“It looks correct when it’s in the background.”

CHAIN-DRIVE MACK

Another curious vehicle is the 1915 Mack Senior dump truck, which was in constant use until 1970. It has a fresh coat of paint (no doubt applied by sponge) and looks impressive and purposeful.

From a distance, this Maserati 300S gets enthusiasts excited as they walk into the museum, but in fact it is a fiberglass-and-plywood movie prop that was donated to the museum after its movie career was over.

Our tour guide had one of the few 1955 Chevys with not only an original “stovebolt” six but also air conditioning—a rare option in Cuba.

ECLECTIC ASSORTMENT

The museum’s inventory includes other vehicles that wouldn’t necessarily increase the blood pressure of an American enthusiast. Some of those (with comments by Eduardo) include:

1969 ALFA ROMEO SPIDER

Eduardo has known of this car since it was new. “My father wouldn’t let me get any closer than one meter away, which is very hard for a young boy. Many years later, the car came to the museum and I was finally able to touch it. I sat in the car for one hour. It is the love of my life.”

1953 DODGE

The dark-brown sedan has special meaning for Eduardo. “That car was my father’s. I inherited it and learned to drive in that car. It never let our family down.”

HIDDEN FIAT

“The car was hidden behind a wall for fifty years. The owner was a woman whose father was an important general in the 1800s. During one of our tyrannies, she decided to have the car hidden behind a wall in her mansion.”

EARLY 1980s CHEVY IMPALA

What? How did this monument of capitalism wind up in Cuba? “Ambassadors often gave cars as gifts to Castro. Those cars were stored in the Central Communist Committee warehouse. Either that or ambassadors just left their official or personal cars to the government when they left Cuba, and they were given to us.”

The museum in Santiago de Cuba is housed in an open shed and contains a mixture of old cars, trucks, and tractors.

Two elegant cars from the past—a 1954 Buick Skylark (left) and a 1948 Mercury convertible—on display at the Santiago de Cuba museum.

PARQUE BACONAO

After seeing the Depósito del Automóvil, we set off for Santiago de Cuba to find the museum located in a local park there. Upon arrival, we were met by the curator, who at one time had worked on the Russian Lada Rally team.

The “museum” was essentially an open L-shaped shed in the Parque Baconao and includes a selection of some fairly shabby cars, mostly brush painted, some missing glass backlights or side windows, and all on jack stands. Two of the rarest or most interesting are a 1954 Buick Skylark and a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Coupe de Ville.

The only car that was actually designed and built in Cuba—the Maya. About the size of a King Midget, it represents Communism at its finest in the Santiago de Cuba Museum.

This Karmann Ghia, on display at the Santiago de Cuba Museum, is certainly newer than 1959, when the US embargo began. But Germany did not initiate an embargo, so later-model European cars were still available to those who could afford them.

Was it worth the drive? To see the museum, no, but to see the “real” Cuba, yes. The Santiago de Cuba area is quite nice, and the hotel where we stayed—the Meliá Santiago de Cuba—was very nice, though dated, like a 1960s Miami hotel. We also found a rare early Ford-powered racer owned by a Cuban exile in Miami and a 1949 Buick Super Convertible during our travels in the city.

A trip to Santiago de Cuba would not be complete without visiting the Castillo del Morro, a fortress guarding the entrance of the Bay of Santiago, that was built between 1638 and 1700. The view is spectacular, and the fort well maintained by the state.

Santiago de Cuba is a very nice city, and we wish we’d had more time to explore the area.