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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.
Modern cars will last as long as these did. I say "did" rather than "have" because even as TFA notes, if you were to look under the hood you probably wouldn't even find original parts in them anymore. That is, other than the body, these practically are no longer the same cars that they once were in the 50's.
The reason why modern cars don't seem to last as long in first world countries is because once they break down to a certain point, the labor cost is so expensive that it's cheaper to just get a new car. However in Cuba, the labor price is typically lower while at the same time it's harder to get a hold of new stuff, which means reusing stuff becomes more practical than just making a new one. Like for example, TFA mentions repurposing old dryer motors for key cutting machines.
It's somewhat hard to think that in the 50's, Cuba was a somewhat wealthy country. That is until glorious revolution happened, and communism made everybody equally poor.