Where there's no evading the battle with rust


In a garage in the town of Aguacate, huge portions of what appears to be an English Ford are being rebuilt with new metal.
   I ALWAYS laugh when I see a TV car restorer in Dallas or Las Vegas open up a project vehicle and complain that it's rustier than expected.
   Rust? Here in Canada, we can show you rust.
   And in Cuba, too, the chapistas know all about corrosion and its insidious appetite for ferrous metal.
   In snowy climes, the liberal spreading of salt on icy roads speeds the electro-chemical process that is rust on any car not tucked away for the winter. In Cuba, where you're never far from the ocean, those same sodium, calcium and magnesium chlorides waft in on the breeze – in smaller quantities, certainly, but just as damaging over the many years of a Cuban car's lifetime.
   The TV restorers from Gas Monkey Garage and Count's Kustoms can fix rust, of course. They just don't want to invest the time.
   Cuban restorers have no choice.
Alongside the Ford, a Dodge is midway through an engine swap.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Discovered in Cuba, a rare Mercedes bird

Image
(December 2012 note: See update link, below.)     GUESS I'LL have to set aside my search for the younger Batista’s 1956 Corvette. An even tastier trophy has emerged – a Mercedes-Benz 300SL, better known as the Gullwing.    Even on the Island of Surprises, I’d be astounded to come across one of these rare beauties. But in a brief section on Cuba in Automobiles Lost & Found (Haynes Publishing, 2008), I see a photo of a battered 300SL observed by author Michael E. Ware outside a private garage near Havana.    The Gullwing, unmistakable lift-up doors in place, is dented and rusting and missing its engine, yet still would be prized by collectors the world over . . . if only they could extract it from Cuba. Restored, the Silver Metallic example with Lipstick Red interior might be worth more than $700,000 U.S.    Reached in England, Mr. Ware tells me he was holidaying in Cuba when an acquaintance brought him to an unnamed community to see the car.    “I never asked whe
Read more

The Cuba Gullwing chronology

Image
How the 300SL would have looked new. Wikipedia photo.     IN SIX YEARS , no topic here has drawn more attention than the story of Cuba's rotting Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe. Visitors from around the world seem endlessly appalled and fascinated by the sad fate of such a rare and beautiful car.      The same analytics program that tells me the home nations of these visitors tells me where on this blog they land – and it's apparent that many are missing the full story (or as full as anyone has been able to make it). The world's largest Internet indexer – you know who I'm talking about – insists on routing the curious to a five-year post and refuses to make note of subsequent entries.    Why? Who knows?     To provide a more complete picture, here's a list of CARISTAS entries on the Gullwing, which, to be clear, was first brought to the world's attention by British auto historian Michael E. Ware in Automobiles Lost & Found (Haynes Publishing, 20
Read more