There are a quarter of a million classic American cars in Cuba, so you see them everywhere. SuckSqueezeBangBlow went on a mission to snap a few of them for you.
What you see more of, interestingly, is Ladas - they were imported on a massive scale from the sixties through the eighties. Your average Lada Riva would cost around 12,000 Cuban pesos (about £8,300-ish), while you'd pay similar money for, say, a fifties Chevy in usable condition. Fuel is so pricey in Cuba that pretty much every Yank tank you see has a diesel engine, and the only ones you see in reasonably original spec are owned by taxi companies in towns.
In a country where the average monthly salary is around £16, buying a car at all is beyond the reach of most Cubans - you need your lump sum in cash, along with an official government permission letter proving that the money is all yours and that you earned it legally. So owning a car in Cuba is a tremendously important thing, a much bigger deal than most of us can possibly imagine - hitch-hiking is the way most Cubans get about (indeed, there are official hitch-hiking co-ordinators in yellow jerseys, for whom government cars are obliged to stop), so drivers will never journey alone - there'll always be someone to pick up en route. So don't be surprised if you see a '57 Chevy belching out acrid black smoke with six people crammed into the back seat - that's just how the Habaneros roll.
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