![\"Hemingway](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/SX2A2681-Hemingway-Chrysler-and-tattered-original-seats-December-2012-copyright-Christopher-P-Baker.jpg\")
<\/a>After Hemingway\u2019s suicide on July 2, 1961, the Castro government seized the property, Finca Vig\u00eda\u2014\u201cdonated to the people of Cuba\u201d is the euphemism\u2014despite the author having willed it to Mary Welsh, his widow. The Chrysler he willed to his doctor, Jos\u00e9 Luis Herrera Sotolongo. The car eventually passed to Sotolongo\u2019s son then through various family hands until sold in 1982 to a Cuban policeman, Agust\u00edn N\u00fa\u00f1ez Guti\u00e9rrez.<\/p>\n
When, in 1994, Guti\u00e9rrez hopped on a raft for Miami, the car vanished.
\nLegends arose. Guti\u00e9rrez had buried the car. No, others claimed, he had secreted the car out of Cuba.
\nIts whereabouts remained a mystery for two decades. Then, in March 2011, Bill Greffin, of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation, in Oak Park, Illinois, contacted me with news that the Cuban government had located the car. \u201cDo you know anything about it?\u201d he asked.
\n\u201cYes,\u201d I replied. Two years before, Eduardo Mesejo Maestre, director of Havana\u2019s car museum (Dep\u00f3sito del Autom\u00f3vil), had said to me: \u201cThe car is hidden, but it is still in the country, and restorable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust so happens I\u2019ll be visiting Cuba in two weeks,\u201d I told Bill, salivating to pick up the scent.
\nSo I drove out to Finca Vig\u00eda, now the Museo Ernest Hemingway, maintained as if the great writer still lived there. As I strolled up the long sloping driveway, I passed what I sensed was the infamous vehicle perched atop cement blocks, elusive still beneath a tarp.<\/p>\n
Ada Rosa Alfonso, the fiery yet amiable director, appeared, files in hand. \u201cWe knew you were coming,\u201d she said enigmatically before showing me the Chrysler\u2019s VIN placa (plate) with the chassis and engine numbers; the insurance policy that Hemingway took out, with the vehicle\u2019s registration number; plus documents from Cuba\u2019s National Registry of Vehicles showing a long list of owners, beginning with Sotolongo (oddly, Hemingway never registered the car in Cuba) and threading to Leopoldo Nu\u00f1ez Guti\u00e9rrez (Agust\u00edn \u2018s uncle), in whose leaky and humid garage the vehicle was eventually found.<\/p>\n Finally Ada Rosa peeled back the tarp.<\/p>\n I gasped. The wretched relic was far from a moveable feast. It looked like it had come from Aleppo. The convertible top and interior leather were gone, eaten away by mold. The gauges were from a Russian GAZ jeep and Lada. The dash from a Dodge. Not even the cracked windshield belonged to this Frankenstein\u2019s monster. And the floor had rotted away completely. I peered down at asphalt beneath the car.<\/p>\n Unfazed, Ada Rosa told me of her plan to restore the treasured trash-heap to running condition. This would be an all-Cuban effort. \u00a0I listened to her, aware of the skill and ingenuity of the Cuban magician mechanics, but aware that the restoration of a unique model and the impossibility imposed by the U.S. embargo of importing parts to Cuba was a huge challenge.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Visitors to Finca Vig\u00eda today will see a painting\u2014\u2018The Farm\u2019\u2014by Joan Mir\u00f3 hanging in the dining room, surrounded by heads of African game that Hemingway shot on safari. On my first visit to the finca in 1996, decades of grime soldered by tropical heat marked the space where the painting had hung before being loaned in 1959 to New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art. It never returned to Cuba. Then, in 2008, David Soul visited and was told the story. Back home in London, the celebrated actor\/director (best known for his role as Ken \u2018Hutch\u2019 Hutchinson, co-star of the popular \u201870s TV cop show Starsky & Hutch) had a canvas replica made.<\/p>\n Then, in November 2012, Soul calls me. He\u2019s read my book, Cuba Classics: A Celebration of Vintage American Automobiles, and wants to meet. So I fly to London, where we schmooze over beers at a pub in Swiss Cottage. He\u2019s just returned from Finca Vig\u00eda, drawn by his insatiable affection for Cuba. Ada Rosa adores Soul for having conjured a print of \u2018The Farm.\u2019 So, she\u2019s asked him to help source the parts. He\u2019s clueless about car restoration. But Soul is a social activist who believes the embargo is well past its used date. So because it\u2019s the right thing to do, and because it\u2019s his literary hero\u2019s car, he says yes. After all, he\u2019s now English. Living in London. The U.S. embargo can\u2019t touch him.<\/p>\n \u201cDavid Soul, un norteamericano con pasaporte ingl\u00e9s, me lo mand\u00f3 del cielo!\u201d exclaims Ada Rosa, her green-blue eyes shining. David Soul\u2026 North American… English passport\u2026 A gift from Heaven!<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a real story here and it\u2019s got to be recorded on film,\u201d Soul tells me. He\u2019s partnered with London-based Red Earth Studio to produce a cinematic documentary\u2014Cuban Soul.<\/p>\n Back in England, Danny Hopkins\u2014editor of Practical Classics\u2014leaps at Soul\u2019s invitation to help source the parts. His magazine spreads the word. Donations trickle in: Fabric to retrim the interior\u2026 Original 15-inch whitewall tires\u2026 Custom-matched Navajo Orange and Desert Sand paint\u2026 A hand-made six-volt battery powerful enough to crank the V-8 lump… And, eventually, a gas tank hand-made to spec. Plus, Hopkins recommends a warehouse in Massachusetts that\u2019s a veritable Aladdin\u2019s Cave of antique Chrysler miscellany. By coincidence, the owner\u2014Chris Paquin\u2014is reading Hemingway\u2019s Boat when Soul calls. He\u2019s in! \u201cI hope I don\u2019t get into trouble by trying to do something good,\u201d he says, prophetically.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Things, however, haven\u2019t gone according to script<\/p>\n \u201cLike kids at Christmas, anticipation was in the air. We couldn\u2019t wait to open our gifts and present them to our wizard panel beater and wonder mechanic,\u201d Soul reflects, as the crew pursues the first shipment from Massachusetts to the UK and on to Cuba. Ten weeks have passed since it arrived in Havana. But the crates are still with Customs and can\u2019t be retrieved. Days pass as Soul & Co. pursue a Sisyphean task against invisible and immovable forces. Soul has signed a Letter of Understanding with Cuba\u2019s Consejo Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural\u2014its National Heritage Council\u2014giving exclusive access to the car in exchange for supplying the parts. Yet Cuba\u2019s lethargic bureaucracy is unyielding. Eight different ministries need to sign off before the parts are released. Ada Rosa bursts into tears as Soul\u2019s temper flares.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got people trying to help you, for God\u2019s sake!\u201d Soul stammers. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to help the museum. Trying to help Cuba!\u201d Eighteen months have passed. The Chrysler shell sits in limbo.<\/p>\n Then Soul comes into OFAC\u2019s crosshairs. Uncle Sam wants to see all receipts. The thaw in the decades-long freeze with Cuba initiated by President Barack Obama on December 17, 2014, is blessed relief. Travel for journalistic activity and humanitarian projects is eased. And exports for use in historical preservation in Cuba will be permitted. In late 2015, OFAC finally clears Soul and Paquin to ship parts.<\/p>\n Then Pedro, the chapista (panel-beater) has a stroke. He\u2019s paralyzed down his right side and can barely talk. When I visited him shortly thereafter, he grins like a Cheshire Cat. Testament to Cubans\u2019 indefatigable patience, resilience, and good humor. \u201cIt\u2019s partly that spirit that drives me,\u201d says Soul. \u201cHemingway speaks so much about the warmth and kindness of the Cuban people. Well, that\u2019s what makes this embargo, this blockade, such an idiotic thing.\u201d Soul sees the restoration of Hemingway\u2019s Chrysler as an example of cultural diplomacy that can help suture U.S.-Cuba relations. \u201cThis project is something that has to be done. And it\u2019s gonna pay off. It\u2019s gonna be for a good reason.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Soul\u2019s health, too, has taken a nosedive. \u2018Hutch,\u2019 the blue-eyed blond seventies heartthrob is now in a wheelchair. Still, in January, 2016, the film crew\u2014accompanied by Hopkins and Paquin on their first visit\u2014returns to Havana, Soul breathing through an oxygen concentrator. ***<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\nA Beverly Hills billionaire car enthusiast has purchased a 1955 New Yorker and begun shipping it in pieces to Cuba. But the U.S. Treasury Department\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforces the embargo, has shut him down.
\n\u201cHere you have an American author whose car has been found and there\u2019s a blockade in place that won\u2019t allow people to send the parts to fix the car,\u201d says Soul.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
\nMonths pass. A second and third shipment are sucked into Cuba\u2019s bureaucratic black hole. Meanwhile, the list of original parts required for restoration is like a Hydra, multiplying with every part that\u2019s supplied. Then\u2026 Hallelujah! Customs releases the parts. But few can be used. First, other parts are needed that have still to be sourced.<\/p>\n
\nBritish citizen since 2004 (and Londoner since 1995) be damned: Uncle Sam is none-too-sympathetic. Soul\u2019s righteous endeavor is afoul of the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. \u201cThe export of U.S. origin goods, car parts or anything else to Cuba, would be a violation of the OFAC sanctions,\u201d Washington-based attorney Wynn Segall informs Soul. He and Paquin are on the hook for fines of up to $250,000 per transaction\u2026 plus a possible stint in jail. Since Soul never renounced U.S. birthrights, even his trips to Cuba are illegal.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThe aging actor hobbles with the aid of a cane, Hopkins gripping his arm, as the crew descends the sloping driveway to Pedro\u2019s home. Pedro, in his mechanic\u2019s overalls, awaits by the gate, right arm stiff at his side. \u201cWe\u2019re the same. El mismo!\u201d Soul says softly as they embrace, tears streaming. Watching on, we\u2019re all crying too.<\/p>\n