1957 Chevrolet Two-Ten Townsman 4-door Station Wagon

"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".

1959 Fiat 1100

"SIX FEET FOUR AND ROOM FOR MORE."

The automotive landscape of Cuba looks quite deserted when you look for Italian cars prior to 1960. This Fiat 1100 is one of a few on Cuban roads. Launched in 1953, the "Nuova Millecento" looks more like a toy beside the big American cruisers, but in postwar Europe it was a rather sporty and comfortable car.

Unlike other European cars of that time, the Fiat 1100 lineup saw a myriad of small changes and versions between 1953 and 1960, sometimes even two per year. We recon that this Fiat, which belongs today to the local "TVC Centrovision Yayabo", is a 1100-103 H "Lusso" from 1959: only this bi-colored version had the distinctive chrome-decor that once divided the two colors on sides and roof.

1958 Chrysler Saratoga 4-door Hardtop

"Step up to the Mighty Chrysler. Walk around it — let your fingers follow its clean and lustrous lines. Here, you sense, is a car that almost demands to be driven. Ease behind the wheel. Lounge and feel the deep pile carpeting underfoot. Survey the eye-catching world about you. Could any throne be more commanding?

Alert the engine and feel, ever so faintly, this Mighty Chrysler bridle for action. Push a button and head for the open road. Never have you dominated motion, space and time so completely! As you glide over rough spots and straighten the tightest curves, you give a silent salute to Chrysler's Torsion-Aire Ride. Let Chrysler prove its power. Touch the accelerator and surge ahead."

This view nicely shows why Chrysler's "Forward Look" design was so cutting-edge in the latter 1950s. The impressive front end really seems eager to eat up the road. With the annual facelift, the grille became even cleaner and wider looking than in its introductory year 1957. The subtle winglets at the outer tips of the bumper and massive tailfins — so dominant that Chryslers copywriters even invented the term "Directional Stabilizers" — create a purposeful, aerodynamic impression. Effective or not, if you have seen one of these Chryslers roaring down Cuba's autopista, you can sense that these cars were a different animal than your average chrome-monster of that year.

Best of all, that look wasn't just a promise, as these cars were truly serious driving machines, too. The advantages of Chrysler's "Torsion-Aire" torsion bar suspension — superior road holding and compact construction — gave an extra edge to the Chryslers: no one else could achieve such a low-slung silhouette with conventional suspension. Did we mention "Constant Control Power Steering" and "Torque Flite" transmission with "Push-Button Control" to bring the 310 horses of its 354 cubic-inch (5.787 ccm) "Spitfire" V-8 engine down to the tarmac, or the "Total Contact Brakes" to stop them?

Even without its original engine, the pictured Chrysler Saratoga is a regular award winner for its complete and authentic condition. Its owner, Reynaldo, is pretty proud of his car, and likes to display it whenever possible. The annual assembly of Havana's renown Escuderia de Autos Clásicos — A lo Cubano at the discotheque "Macumba" in Havana's La Lisa suburb is such a welcome opportunity. Here, period cars and people in period fashion nicely recreate the flavor of past times when these cars still were la última moda.

1987 GAZ-14 Chaika

Even if allegedly all people were equal in communist countries, the functionaries found subtle ways to let everyone know that they were more equal than the rest. Case in point: the car. Even if he had the money, an average communist couldn't possess a representative car, as they were allotted according to the political status. GAZ, Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, was the place to go when you had already climbed the ladder: who got into a "Chaika" clearly belonged to the very privileged few.

The design of the GAZ models had always been inspired by period American car styling. The GAZ-12 from 1950 looked like a blend of contemporary Cadillac and Buick up front, combined with the cabin of a Hudson. The GAZ-13 of the late 1950s seemed to be the offspring of a mid-1950s Packard. With the GAZ-14, presented in 1977 and produced until 1988, the designers finally had found an own, distinctive look. Underneath its skin, however, the "Chaika" was still based on the same old 1950s construction of its predecessor.

Our pictured "Chaika" was one of five in Fidel Castro's fleet. Since they finished their duty as representative cars, they serve as public taxis. The armor got removed and the engine replaced by a Mercedes Diesel. Easy to guess that this diet worked miracles to the economy and performance.

With a bit of luck you can catch a ride in one of these "Chaika" taxis in Havana. The interior of our pictured car features fancy rear shelf air conditioning, period all-Russian lettering on its dashboard controls, and psychedelic 1980s patterns and colors all-around. "Beach Towel" would be the right connotation. If this was the original trim, then Fidel Castro and his buddies sure had a big smile on their faces every time they drove in this car. Riding in this taxi, the average Cuban communist today can at least discover the amenities of a representative limo and feel just like the comandante en jefe and his chums.

Incidentally, the end of the GAZ-14 was caused by Michail Gorbatchev's perestroika policy which should ultimately end the Cold War and trigger the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1988, the central committee of Russia's communist party announced a decree over the omission of privileges. The use of representative cars was now forbidden for Russia's top brass, and GAZ lost its clients from one day to the next. After 11 years of production —pretty short for such a kind of car in Russia — the assembly line of the "Chaika", as well as most documentation, became obliterate. An attempt to revive the production in 1996 resulted fruitless: building such a dinosaur again simply wasn't rentable anymore.