yank tanks
Simon Romero, Caracas
December 14, 2010
Luis Jose Alfonso Gonzalez sits on his 1978 Chevrolet Malibu V8 in Naiguat, a small coast town near Caracas. Photo: New York Times
ASCENDING the narrow streets that wind through Caracas's hillside slums, the graffiti steadily gets more radical and anti-American, repeatedly proclaiming "Yankees go home!" amid murals denouncing US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
But at the same time, the cars get bigger - as in '70s-style, gas-guzzling, Starsky and Hutch, Ford Gran Torino big - and American.
"We like our cars to be like tanks in this country, meaning they should be huge, comfortable and preferably manufactured in the United States," said Miguel Delgado, 52, a mechanic in Los Frailes, a slum on this city's western fringe, where he was working on a 1976 Dodge Coronet and a 1979 Chevrolet Impala.
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The survival here of so many retro-chic American gas hogs can be put down partly to the vagaries of Venezuela's recent history and partly to its oil wealth. Motorists say they drive these cars simply because they can. They smile when they hear that petrol prices in the US average about US79¢ a litre, and much higher in parts of Europe.
Venezuela provides what might be the most generous fuel subsidy anywhere. Petrol, currently less than US10¢ per US gallon (about 3.8 litres), is the cheapest in the world, undercutting even Saudi Arabia and Iran.
While Venezuela is a major oil producer, the subsidy still costs the government more than $US9 billion a year. For all his populism, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has lamented its drain on public finances, calling petrol prices "disgusting''.
But he has not touched the subsidy, which many Venezuelans consider a birthright. An increase in fuel prices in 1989 helped set off riots in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed.
Today, filling the tank of a 1974 Lincoln Continental, a six-metre-long monster with a V8 engine and miles per gallon in the low teens, costs about $US1, including a small tip for the petrol station attendant. "It's a super-economical car," said Jose Pereira, 41.
Many of the vintage land yachts tooling around Caracas today were imported during the heyday of "Venezuela Saudita", Saudi Venezuela, in the early 1970s, when oil prices quadrupled and the country was flush with petrodollars.
Then president Carlos Andres Perez nationalised the oil industry, sent aid to Bolivia and tried to turn Venezuela into a player in the developing world. A Concorde flight linked Caracas to Paris. So many Venezuelan shoppers flocked to Miami that they were called "dame dos'', Spanish for "give me two''.
"My car reminds me of the era when Venezuela was the envy of Latin America," said Jesus Regalado, 68, a taxi driver who still cruises the city in his 1975 Dodge Dart, which he bought new thanks to a government financing program.
Much has changed since then. Oil prices plunged in the 1980s, and in the ensuing tumult, Mr Chavez, then an obscure military officer, led an unsuccessful 1992 coup attempt against Mr Perez. After his release from prison, Mr Chavez won the presidency in 1998 and turned Venezuela from a country where the US wielded considerable influence to a thorn in Washington's side.
His new political alliances and another roaring oil boom, which ended abruptly in 2008, lined the roads with newer cars. An Iranian venture now manufactures a four-door sedan here called the Turpial. Officials have begun importing thousands of Russian Ladas. In the capital's wealthier districts, Jeep Cherokees, Ford Expeditions and even the occasional Hummer vie for space in clogged thoroughfares with smaller Toyotas, Daewoos, Hondas and Hyundais.
Yet despite the newer cars, the low growl of American guzzlers still cuts through the traffic.
Some motorists say they buy the cars because spare parts are easily available. Others buy them to hedge against Venezuela's high inflation. Used cars hold their value remarkably well here: a 1979 Ford LTD Landau, for instance, sells for about $5200 here compared with about $1500 in the US.
But the affection for the ageing American giants that saves so many of them from the crushers cannot be explained by economics alone.
"I love my Fairlane precisely because it is American," said Freddy Gomez, 54, a deliveryman in this city's gritty Boleita district who drives a red 1974 Ford Fairlane. Grinning with a hint of mischief, he pointed to a decal on the Fairlane's rear window, which showed a mathematical equation involving the Ford logo plus a bottle of spirits plus a female figure. The sum: a couple in an amorous embrace.
"When people see me driving my Fairlane, they know I'm a man of style," he said. "This car is the F-16 of the highways, friend," he added, referring to the American warplanes, acquired before diplomatic relations soured with Washington and still flown by Venezuela's air force.
NEW YORK TIMES
