Cuban Reforms May Endanger Classic US Cars

People might be able to buy modern ones for the first time
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 23, 2011 4:19 PM CDT
Cuban Reforms May Endanger Classic US Cars
A vintage Buick in Havana.   (Getty Images)

Cuba is making moves to give citizens more economic freedom, specifically the right to buy and sell homes and cars for the first time. CNN takes note and wonders what that might mean for all those classic Buicks, Plymouths, and Pontiacs cruising the nation's roads. They still exist because of an old law put in place by Fidel Castro that allows ctizens to buy and sell only cars that were on the road before his 1959 revolution.

If the reforms go into place, plenty of Cubans are expected to try to sell their old rides and get a modern car for the first time. One Cuban who has turned his 1952 Plymouth into a taxi thinks the vintage cars are safe, though. "If these cars didn't exist, not as many foreigners would come to Cuba to drive around in them and take pictures." (More Cuba stories.)

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