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Preserving Cuba's Classic Cars (hackaday.com)
szczys writes: Cuba is a wonderland of classic cars. These aren't sitting in showroom-like garages of wealthy collectors, they're on the road — about 60,000 of them. Most of these cards are 55-70 years old and it's amazing how people are keeping these automobiles running. After ties between Cuba and the United States were cut off in the 1960's, vehicles were brought in from the Eastern Bloc and the diesel engines from many of these ended up being retrofit into the American cars. But there are still many holdouts who have made their gas-burning vehicles more efficient rather than convert to the alternative fuel.
These are real hackers.
In Communist Cuba classic cars smoke you!
I've been to Cuba many times,
It's true! they are nice and look good from the outside...
If you open the hood of that 1950 Chevrolet, you will find a Dawoo, Suzuki or any other engine that they can fit in the body.
It is still amazing!
You don't know how the car industry works, do you? The car lobby is working hard that the next trade treaty cuba makes with any foreign country except perhaps venezuela will contain provisions for enhanced car safety and emmision values. And all those cars will have to be dumped, and new ones bought, that only work for five years each.
and use the dmca to lock out 3rd party repairs you have to go to the dealer for any fix.
analogy to this?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Hoo-ray SOCIALISM!
Where keeping 50-year-old cars running is a NECESSITY!
Health care? Yeah, if you only had 1,500 cal/day to eat and had to walk everywhere, you'd be healthy too. Remember, Castro went to SPAIN when he needed medical care...
>> These aren't sitting in showroom-like garages of wealthy collectors....yet.
FTFY. The free market will ensure that the best of these cars make into collector's hands quickly. And I wouldn't cry for the Cubans who sell them to the "stupid Americans" for 5x their value in Cuba - they'll each be laughing to the bank with their relative wealth.
when we can 3D print any car we want, preserving these old cars is a Luddite thing to do. As a matter of fact, if we send just one 3D printer to Cuba, the entire country's standard of living will dramatically increase within hours.
I very much enjoyed this story
As did I - though driven as my necessity as anything else, it's an interesting tale of hardware hacking.
There's more to nerdom than computers.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
You'll see these classic cars all over Havana. They are often used as taxi's and are fun to ride in. Most owners take great pride in maintaining them, too. These guys were hacking these cars before the word came to mean what it does today---they had to learn to improvise since they couldn't get parts. (You should see what they do for TV antennas!) Most of the modern cars you see there are Chinese.
My Dad and I both are gearheads, it is something as a much younger man I did not really get into, but as I got older I purposely made myself take an interest in as an excuse to find time to spend with the oldman. One of the networks (TV) is running a show about how a 'master' mechanic in Cuba keeps these so-called Frankencars running with scraps, bailing wire, and pure 'engine-nuity'. I think it would be so-cool to gather up a boatload of what we would call useless scrap parts and take them to Cuba for donation to those folks and see what they could produce. A Dodgsel, with a chevrolac rear end.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
It will become a cultural attraction and a piece of living history for the imminent American tourist holidays, so Cuba should strive to keep those cars running.
They haven't been preserved. Lots of major parts have been replaced by non-original components. But then, I don't really think anything of value was lost. Most American cars of the era were complete and utter crap. Preserving a few can be interesting for documentation and nostalgia, but I think that has been done enough in the U.S.
that Communism is cool because it is all about sucking up to college professors so as to graduate. Communism is cool because that is what the media and entertainment sector has carefully taught the post Cold War generations.
College poisoning is curable [gunshot].
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