Cars of Cuba

Rating:
Summary: Keep them on street
Review: A copy of "Cars of Cuba" should be given for every owner of a trailer queen automobile and all the over-restoration adepts... For real vintage car lovers it's great to see that the old Chevys, Fords, Packards, Studes and even Hudsons are still used as daily drivers by careful owners, near 50 years after the production (the paint appearance doesn't matter). Cristina Garcia and Joshua Greene, we wait anxiously for "Cars of Cuba - tome II".

Rating:
Summary: Keep them on street
Review: A copy of "Cars of Cuba" should be given for every owner of a trailer queen automobile and all the over-restoration adepts... For real vintage car lovers it's great to see that the old Chevys, Fords, Packards, Studes and even Hudsons are still used as daily drivers by careful owners, near 50 years after the production (the paint appearance doesn't matter). Cristina Garcia and Joshua Greene, we wait anxiously for "Cars of Cuba - tome II".

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating account of Cuban ingenuity and skill.
Review: A fascinating account of the ingenuity and skill of Cuban car buffs. Old American cars are kept running without the benefit of spare parts availability. It made me realize how wasteful we are in America - the Cubans would love to have access to the cars we sent to our junkyards decades ago! We go into debt to have the latest vehicle, when the one we just got rid of could have lasted a lifetime if only we had appreciated what we had and had given it the level of tender loving care that the Cubans do. The book has some very interesting stories on the Cuban car culture and how some individual 50's era American cars were kept running, and has great photos. My only complaint is that I want to know more! I want the author and photographer to go back to Cuba and take a good U.S. mechanic and a mechanical engineer with them. Then, take a lot more photos of the cars but don't limit us to the exterior. I want to see dashboards, engines, underbody, spare parts, everything! I want to see the machinery and tools inside their shops. I want to know, in full depth, all the details on how they adapt Russian parts to these cars. I want all the intimate technical details from beginning to end on a particular car. So much for the proposed sequel - Cars of Cuba gave me an evening of great pleasure as I read about and looked at pictures of Cuba's living car museum.

Rating:
Summary: Time warp
Review: This book is fabulous and every admirer of American cars of that era should have it. Not only does it give you beautiful glossy pictures of a variety of old American cars in Cuba, but it places them in beautiful (and sometimes not so beautiful) Cuban settings. There is some insight into the place that these cars have in Cuban society to this day; they are actually regarded as a member of the family, not merely as transportation. I recently spent some time in Cuba and rode around in a '58 Rambler, a '53 Chevy, and a '48 Pontiac! Not that it was always a pleasant experience (the Rambler reeked of exhaust fumes; I tore my jeans climbing out of the Chevy; and the Pontiac, with a diesel truck engine, was noisier than Kennedy Airport at rush hour), but it is amazing how they manage to keep those old cars running seemingly against all odds. This book is a tribute not just to the cars themselves, but to "the most brilliant mechanics on the face of this blue-green planet," as Garcia calls them. How ironic it is that, after four decades of Soviet/Russian influence, the prerevolutionary American cars are so prized and the newer Ladas are widely scorned.

Rating:
Summary: Time warp
Review: This book is fabulous and every admirer of American cars of that era should have it. Not only does it give you beautiful glossy pictures of a variety of old American cars in Cuba, but it places them in beautiful (and sometimes not so beautiful) Cuban settings. There is some insight into the place that these cars have in Cuban society to this day; they are actually regarded as a member of the family, not merely as transportation. I recently spent some time in Cuba and rode around in a '58 Rambler, a '53 Chevy, and a '48 Pontiac! Not that it was always a pleasant experience (the Rambler reeked of exhaust fumes; I tore my jeans climbing out of the Chevy; and the Pontiac, with a diesel truck engine, was noisier than Kennedy Airport at rush hour), but it is amazing how they manage to keep those old cars running seemingly against all odds. This book is a tribute not just to the cars themselves, but to "the most brilliant mechanics on the face of this blue-green planet," as Garcia calls them. How ironic it is that, after four decades of Soviet/Russian influence, the prerevolutionary American cars are so prized and the newer Ladas are widely scorned.