"For work or play — on any occasion — Chevrolet's got the handiest, dandiest wagons of them all!"
Pictured here, two marvels of their time. Even in "practical disguise", the 1957 Chevrolet in the foreground is one of the iconic designs of the 1950s. The three-year lifecycle of the famous Tri-Five Chevys was in its final year in 1957, and Chevrolet's design team under Clare MacKichan pulled out all the stops to make a striking design look even more spectacular. A new wide front grille with integrated bumper, space-age inspired trim details, and large anodized aluminum panels covering the „High-Fashion“ rear fenders of the Bel Air brought previously unseen glamour to GM's budget car line.
In the background is the emblematic FOCSA building, at 121 meters height still the tallest building in Cuba, which dominates the skyline of Havana. Being the world's second largest concrete building upon its completion in 1956, it was a national sensation, and it is today acclaimed as one of the seven wonders of Cuban civil engineering. The apartment building offered all the amenities of a contemporary urban lifestyle on its 39 floors: a four-level garage with 500 spaces, an in-house supermarket and its own rooftop restaurant sure made life in the 373 sea-view apartments very comfortable. It comes to no surprise that the Castro government reserved many of these apartments in post-revolutionary times for its most honorable foreign guests, predominantly Russian advisors and „specialists".