Classic Cars in Cuba

I first heard about classic cars in Cuba when a teacher from my school went there and made a presentation about his trip and showed it to my school. When we first got to Cuba I noticed classic cars right away. My English teacher shared an article about classic cars and why there are so many in Cuba. One of the main reasons is because there were many trade restrictions after the Cuban revolution in 1959. No new cars were being shipped from America and it was too expensive to bring in cars from different countries. Since the revolution there have been some cars shipped from China and Russia.

There was a phrase in the article I read that said, “those cars have a fuel efficiency that can probably be compared to a tank.” Which means they have very bad gas mileage. When the engine dies many people replace their engine with a diesel one that gets better gas mileage and is cheaper. One problem is that they spew more particulates which can be bad for people’s health. Yesterday we were on a walk in a busy part of the city and there was a lot of exhaust from all the cars and buses. By the time we got home we all felt pretty tired from the long walk and a little gross from all of the exhaust (after all we do live on the coast where there is not much air pollution).

During our walks around Havana we have seen lots of classic cars. We have seen some really fancy shiny ones for tourist taxis, and some that aren’t so fancy that are just for normal use and maybe as taxis. Even though there are a lot of classic cars there are also a lot of normal ones too, but I think it is kind of cool that there are so many of the old cars too.