C56D2784 in La Habana

[Tom Gibson]

Greetings,

For additions made to Havana's legendary Tropicana Cabaret, Cuban architect Max Borges Recio won the Gold Prize in 1953 from the National College of Architects. The club's mirrored entryway provides a multi-faceted backdrop for the '56 Mark II C56D2784, one of nine known to have arrived when new to Cuba's capital city.

56 C56D2784 9 Mark II DSC_9127CXT.jpg

Ordered by a prosperous Havana Ford dealer, the Continental is said to have once belonged to Marta Batista, wife of the deposed dictator who fled the country on New Year's Eve, 1958, sixty-one years ago tomorrow. Owned for many years by a now-retired Cubana de Aviacion pilot, C56D2784 is a regular fixture on the streets of La Habana. First black, then a dark red and now a light ivory-green, the car's Batista attribution is still up in the air but hopefully one day we can prove that claim, one way or another.