Cruisin'
Acrylic on canvas – 16" x 20"

The old American cars of Cuba, known as "cacharros," are not genuine classics but cobbled-together mongrels of different engines, gear boxes, body parts, seats, and windows, held together by frayed rubber bands, old rags, shoelaces and rusty plumbing tubes.


The Cuban government enforces a ban on buying and selling private cars produced after the 1959 Communist revolution. If you’re rich the ban doesn’t apply. Or at least it didn’t until March 2010, when a program allowing wealthier Cubans to import BMWs and Mercedes was abruptly stopped.

George H. Rothacker - Havana '59 - Hemingway On Patrol

Painting: Price on request

(george@rothackeradv.com)
Print: $65 +tax and shipping


No one knows why. If you’re a tourist it doesn’t apply either. You can hire an Audi A4 from one of the state-owned rental agencies if you’re brave enough to navigate the unlit, unsigned streets and wobbling bicycle taxis. Or you can even rent a shiny full working classic American convertible and rev it up on Havana’s coastal avenue, the Malecón.