Brand new Mercedes Benzes, pick-up trucks, Wrangler jeeps and even some Teslas: in the midst of a strong crisis economic in Cuba, cars high-end cars have begun to steal the spotlight from the American classics of the 1950s and the compact Soviet Lada and Moskvich.
“Cuba It is a country that needs new cars to seek responsibility environmental. We have to do it now,” mechanical engineer Julio Álvarez, 56 and owner of a tourist transportation company, told AFP.
Passionate about American classics since he was young, Álvarez has just matter a SUV Chinese Dongfeng for your company Nostalgicdedicated since 2011 to organizing tourist tours around the island.
“What we have to look for is how to get the money out of him and recover the investment“explains Álvarez, who has had among his clients the family of President Barack Obama (2009-2017) and music stars such as Madonna and Beyoncé.
He SUV colored black seduces in the workshop, where he shares space with 14 Chevrolet brightly colored antiques, including a 1938 pickup truck, all as if they had just left the factory.
Since he arrived Dongfenghis wife and partner in NostalgicNidialys Acosta, “doesn’t want to get out” of the car, jokingly comments the engineer, who has plans to matter another five cars modern for your business.
The island’s vehicle park offers a totally unique vintage spectacle with tens of thousands of cars old, among American classics, which are generally used as taxis or for tourism, mixed with the Lada and Moskvich of the Soviet era.
– Inequality –
Faced with a strong crisis economic crisis, with shortages of food, medicine and fuel, in a year and a half the Cubans have mainly seen an avalanche of people passing through the streets of Havana. SUVSUVs and pick-up trucks, from Japanese, South Korean, Chinese and American manufacturers.
In a country of less than 10 million inhabitants, where public transportation is insufficient due to the lack of spare parts and fuel and the salary average is 5,000 pesos (42 dollars), these cars show the growing inequality on the communist island.
They began to arrive in the country in 2023, when the government made more flexible with a new law his import in dollars mainly for the private companies that had authorized in 2021.
With a vehicle park of 600,000 vehiclesmany of them in poor technical condition, these cars modern ones are obvious among the cars and electric motorcycles that Cubans more solvents have also begun to matter.
According to the Economic and Commercial Council Cuba-United States, a commercial chamber based in New York, during the first half of this year the Cubans they imported cars from that country for about 35 million dollars, a figure that triples the total recorded in 2023.
That figure could skyrocket starting at the end of October, when the government Cuban plans to approve a new law for the import of vehicles by individuals, which substantially reduces taxes and tariffs.
– Unattainable dream –
As explained recently on Cuban television by the Minister of Transport, Edward Rodríguez, for matter a $10,000 car, a Cuban currently pays about $50,000, while that figure will be reduced to $15,900 after the entry into force of the law.
Still, at a Cuban with a salary On average, it would take 31 years to reach that figure, in a country where this type of credit does not exist.
“None doctor nor can any professional in our country dream or pretend, with the salary what you pay, get a car, not even a motorcycle, which is cheaper,” anesthesiologist William Flores, 25, tells AFP while waiting for a public bus to return home after his medical shift.
For him driver César Milera, 48, would also be an unattainable dream: “I would like to, but it is difficult for me to get it. You have to be optimistic, but it is a lot money“.
Several owners of this type of cars They declined to comment to AFP.
He government has announced that the new law will regulate the quantity and type of vehicle that may be matter.
“There are some cars that are entering that are not really compatible with our society, they are not necessary,” Manuel Marrero, prime minister of Cuba.
