Re: Look what I found in the paper today

Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2013/3/3 13:00:56

I only found out a few months ago that when Cuba became a Communist country private ownership of cars became illegal, along with private ownership of real estate and a lot of other things.

Existing cars were exempt but there were no more car dealers selling cars or doing repairs. Except for official garages for government owned vehicles.

Private car owners could keep their cars but had to do their own repairs or depend on shade tree mechanics. As there are officially no privately owned cars in Cuba, naturally the government does not keep dealerships or parts stores open. And there are no non government owned businesses.

So they improvise, or get someone to bring things in from Mexico in a suitcase, or cobble something together from a junker or from parts snuck out the back door of the official garages, like Russian truck carburetors and Lada engines.

There are a few really nice pre 1959 cars that have been locked in garages for years. The average privately owned car has seen over 50 years of hard service with NO parts or repairs available, officially.