Now, I have been told repeatedly that there is a shortage of modern cars in Cuba because of the US embargo. What I don’t understand is why some non-US company like Honda or BMW doesn’t sell there (I’ve never heard of Japan or Germany having an embargo), or why doesn’t some Canadian or Mexican company buy Fords or Chevy’s in Canada or Mexico and ship them to Cuba? If it were done by non-US nationals who hold no US visa operating wholly outside the US I don’t see how they could possibly run afoul of US law (except by possibly being barred from entering or getting a visa to the US later).
Don’t tell me there is no trade at all since Cuban cigars are available in Canada and Mexico.
I’m guessing the answer is that anyone who would dare sell to Cuba gets barred from doing business in and/or even entering the US, so companies like Honda or BMW can choose to either sell to the US or to Cuba, and they all pick the US since its a way larger market.
This message is not to be interpeted as counsel or incitement to do business with Cuba.
Here’s a relevant wikipedia page: Yank tank - Wikipedia
I would also recommend the excellent documentary “Yank Tanks” which deals with these.
Basically, a general lack of consumer spending power combined with internal regulations which make it hard to own a car that wasn’t registered before the revolution. There are other cars running around, but these have to be imported through government channels, which traditionally only allowed other eastern bloc cars. These were always in short supply in the USSR, so there weren’t very many of them exported. Also, one can certainly see how during the cold war days one would prefer a 50’s Chevy to a 80’s Lada or Volga.
These days, they’re a little bit more leniant about importing cars, especially since after the fall of the USSR fuel prices went through the roof and most of the yank tanks are incredibly expensive to run. If you see street scenes of modern Havana, though they like to focus on the old American cars because that’s the cliche now, most of the traffic you see running around are European and Asian economy cars.
Cars are expensive in Cuba, and before you even can buy one, you need a permit from the government allowing you to own a car, and the government doesn’t give out many permits because they don’t want people to own cars, and even if you have a car, gasoline is expensive. Filling up a gas tank costs about a month or two’s salary for the average person.
Bottom line, if you had a car before the revolution you were allowed to keep your car. But getting a new car was essentially impossible for average folks, only government officials were allowed to have new cars. It wasn’t that they weren’t allowed to by cars from America, they weren’t allowed to buy cars period.
And so if you had a car, you’d keep it running by any means possible, because if it broke down you’d never get a new one. And so we have cars from the 50s still driving around Havana.
But note that these cars are worthless as collectors items because they aren’t stock. They’ve had all sorts of modifications, engine changes, body panel changes, and so on. If you get a junked 50s car from a salvage yard and get it into working condition by any means necessary, you won’t have a collectors item. Only cars that have been kept in mint condition are worth anything.
Not to be overly blunt about it, but are you kidding? The people of Cuba are peasants who suffer under a brutal dictatorship. They barely have enough food to eat and often run out of basic necessities like toilet paper. People didn’t risk their lives on flimsy homemade rafts to get out of there just because they can’t buy an American car. No one is even allowed to own a boat unless they are ideologically pure because the first thing they would do would be to get the hell out of Dodge. You might as well ask why North Koreans don’t buy tons of Rolexes and carry Hannah Montana lunchboxes to school. It is all they can do to eke out a subsistence level existence and not run afoul of the thought police.
Cuba tried to liberalize things a bit by allowing tourism when the Soviets collapsed (and could no longer foot all of the bills for its zombie client state) and that has helped some but not nearly enough. The last I checked they were still using monthly ration books for food and the monthly allotment was listed as;
Rice, 6 pounds.
Dried beans, 10 ounces.
White sugar, 3 pounds.
Brown sugar, 2 pound.
Coffee, 4 ounces.
Cooking oil, about 2 cups.
Eggs, 10
Salt, 12 ounces.
Bath or laundry soap, 1 bar.
Toothpaste, one tube
Dried pasta, 8 ounces.
Crackers, 1 pound.
Fish, 10 ounces.
Cacao (sweetened cocoa powder) 8 ounces.
Chicken, 8 ounces.
Other meat products, a little less than 1 pound. Can be any mix of chicken, hot dogs, a ham-like product called “jamonada” and “picadillo texturizdo,” a ground beef-type mixture mostly of soy.
Bread rolls, 30 a month.
Potatoes, 4 pounds.
Liquid detergent, 1 plastic bottle.
All of these items were subject to recurring shortages.
Cubans have other sources that they use to supplement these rations but suffice to say there hasn’t been much of a market there for any consumer good.