Old Cars in Havana

Havana is the empire of old cars. Almost 90% of the cars that slowly cruise in the city are old 40s and 50s American, or even Russian, automobiles. Some of them are shining in their full splendor, and others are mummified cars with innumerable layers of paint on them. For the first category, for sure, the owners spend a bit more of their income in order to improve and maintain their precious cars. First at all, because it is not an easy job to pay for the fuel and secondly, because for many of those cars there are no spare diesel parts available for any kind of reparations.

Even if Havana is full of classic cars from the golden age of American automobiles, the cars that look American on the outside often have Russian parts inside.

Around the world there are a lot of voices stating that the Cubans love old cars, but nothing could be more wrong: the Cubans love new cars, not old ones, but the newest cars that they can get their hands on are 45 years old. And this is due to the fact that the government doesn’t want the private worldwide automobile industry in Cuba.