Vehicles Blog

Updates from February, 2012

• If a chopper is riding around Havana and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The answer, mi amigo, is si. Someone could probably hear a chopper in Cuba all the way from Miami.

  It sure felt that way in the tiny garage where Fernando Varera kickstarted a vintage Harley-Davidson. The BLAT BLAT BLAT of a 50-year-old hog is unmistakable and can probably send big enough soundwaves to start an earthquake. After his small audience flinched, surprised by how loud that hog could snort, Varera, who restores old choppers and Harleys here, laughed like it was his birthday and said, “Yes! Scary, isn’t it?”

  This particular Harley he was displaying, with his chest puffed up and a big grin, was used by the Cuban police back in its heyday. In the late 1920s, former Cuban president Gerardo Machado made Harley-Davidsons the official motorcycles of the police.

  “Look,” Varera says, with something mischievous obviously on its way. He points to the button that starts the sirens. “I like to use it when I’m in a rush,” he says, stomping his feet and bending over from a bout of maniacal laughter. He takes off his glasses to wipe away some tears. “Everyone gets out of my way.”

  Although they say all Cubans are mechanics out of necessity, Varera does it because he thinks it’s fun. He also comes from a long line of mechanics; his family repaired boats for the Spanish army before landing in Cuba.

  “The world of Harleys is a very special one,” he says. “People will pay very big money for them, even if they don’t work.”

  Luckily for Cuban Harley lovers, good ones in working order, although rare, can still be found despite the 50-year-old embargo from the United States. Varera says he once found a Harley-Davidson on a farm that hadn’t been touched in more than 50 years. All it needed was a spit shine and some fuel, and it was running like it was 1962. He says it’s the solid build quality that makes Harleys such stalwart machines that continue to ignite passion in motorheads.

  Other times, Varera isn’t so lucky. The embargo makes it near impossible to find parts, so many of the Harleys he works with are actually bastardized, put together with parts from other bikes. Other tinkerers have also resorted to building and machining spare parts by hand. Cuban Harleyheads have to fight to keep their bikes alive, which likely makes their dedication even stronger.

  According to the documentary Cuban Harlistas: The art of Harley-Davidson maintenance in Cuba, there are about 150 of the classic bikes on the island, with about 80 still in working condition. After the embargo from the Unites States was enacted, the Cuban government began to see the hogs as a symbol of American imperialism, which made being a Harley fan a bit more difficult. Although the stigma has lifted, life as a Harley-Davidson aficionado still isn’t easy.

  Varera says the passion for HDs is obvious when Harley bikers on the island meet on the third Sunday of every June at the famous Colon cemetery in Havana. The rally, of which Varera is a dedicated patron, is called Dia del Motorista Ausente (the Day of the Absent Motorcyclist) in honour of José Lorenzo Cortes, a Cuban Harley mechanic and master restorer who allegedly disappeared in 1990. Cortes is a legend in Cuba, credited with being the father of the art of Harley maintenance on the small island.

  Cuban Harlistas says that, in 1992, the Club of Classical Motorbikes in Cuba was established to help Harley lovers on the island organize rides and exchange information and spare parts. The club is admired by Harley organizations all over the world, because they appreciate how difficult it can be for Cubans to keep their bikes running. The club often gets donations of spare parts and tires from these organizations, and every little bit helps.

  The club’s rally has become sort of a mecca for Harley lovers from all over the world, and despite there being a language barrier, the passion for Harley-Davidsons is universal. The hog only speaks one language, and it’s a language of love and perseverance.

  

  Jodi Lai for National Post

  A surprisingly clean engine block like this one is difficult to come by.

  

  Jodi Lai for National Post

  Fernando Varera with the police Harley at his home in Havana.

  
  

  

  
  7:39 pm on February 24, 2012
   

• New Delhi • India’s capital city is a study in contrasts. While the dilapidated buildings and sidewalks may be crumbling, look closer and you can see evidence of New Delhi’s former glory. Wipe away the dust at your feet and a colourful mosaic of marble is revealed. Walk up to that grimy doorway and you can see it’s also made of marble, a formerly ivory hue. The power lines may be wrapped around that tree, causing you to wonder if that’s why the Internet service in your hotel is so slow, but take a good look at the tree and you see how beautiful it really is.

  Related

  • Auto Expo 2012

  Don’t worry if some stretches of the busy tree-lined street have no working traffic lights and you have to risk your life to get to the other side — the cars and motorized rickshaws slow down and let you pass unharmed.

  
  Once across the street, the sweet smell of sandalwood beckons you to a nearby Indian arts and crafts shop. Inside, the scent of incense mixes with the aroma of Kashmir tea, lending credence to your romantic notion of what India should smell like and dispelling the nasty rumours of odours of a less fragrant variety.

  Rows upon rows of gorgeous silk and wool scarves are stacked floor to ceiling in two rooms of the shop. In another room, dozens of colourful silk carpets are displayed on the floor or hanging on the wall. For a shopaholic, this is Nirvana. Even my male colleagues, who usually steer clear of such womanly pursuits, are impressed by the colourful wares. They help me pick out a few carpets and scarves, offering their opinions on which designs they like best. (They shall remain anonymous in order to preserve their manhood.) I also stock up on incense and tea, while my two colleagues wait patiently.

  Fellow explorer of Italian descent Christopher Columbus can finally rest in peace — I have discovered the Silk Road!

  After depleting much of the stock at the first shop, the three of us make our way to a few other stores near our hotel, The Metropolitan, where we buy some sandalwood carvings and silkscreen paintings. One of my colleagues buys a heavy-metal Buddha head made out of some unknown material that even the customs agent at Heathrow Airport can’t identify.

  Since there is nothing left for us (me, really) to buy at the tourist shops, I suggest we take a stroll through the nearby outdoor market. After all, I want to see the real New Dehli.

  The marketplace is bustling with energy as spice merchants flog their fragrant, colourful wares alongside fruit, egg and cotton vendors. It’s here that I finally find the wooden prayer beads my friend has asked me to buy for her. They cost a fraction of what they would have cost in the tourist shops. For a minute, I wonder if I should’ve waited to buy my silken wares. But there are no carpets or scarves to be seen out here, so I’m content that I got some good bargains. And if not, at least I helped support the local economy. Everybody wins.

  But despite the euphoria of our mini shopping spree, it is a small consolation for not being able to visit the Taj Mahal, one of the most beautiful buildings on Earth and one of the seven wonders of the world, located just south of here. But this is a business trip and we don’t have time to travel the three hours to Agra.

  So, after our short shopping trip, it’s back to the hotel to eat some delicious Tikki Masala, answer some emails (if the Internet is working) and get some much-needed sleep as the next day we’re off to the auto show, the real purpose of our trip.

  Three days is certainly not enough time to spend in such an incredible country as India, but it is long enough to realize that I want to come back.

  
  

  

  
  6:25 pm on January 13, 2012
   

• By Ted Davis

  Stereotypes inevitably determine that the autobahn experience be cited as the definitive driving experience in Germany. But at the end of the day, there is more satisfaction in exiting the superslab and charting your course past the farms, castles and villages of the German countryside.

  There is no shortage of this scenery in Deutschland, but you might not know that if your driving vacation is framed around the typical city-focused route. Germany’s cities — Munich, Heidelberg, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Berlin, etc. — are the country’s major tourism drawing cards.

  Connecting them in the most direct way are Germany’s autobahns, those famous multi-lane highways that are largely free of speed limits. Limits are imposed in obvious areas — i.e., near cities or road works — but roughly half of the autobahn network has no speed limits at all, and the average pace in these stretches is about 150 kilometres an hour.

  Many of the ’bahns are concentrated in the commercial/industrial corridor that runs north-south from Dortmund and Essen in the north, down through Dusseldorf, Cologne and Frankfurt, further south to Stuttgart and southwest to Munich. Some of the heaviest traffic in Europe rolls slowly past these places during peak workday hours.

  But north of the corridor, the traffic volumes drop dramatically, while the autobahn stays wide and fast. Early on a bright Sunday morning, the three lanes of the A1 southbound from Osnabruck beckon with a wide-open invitation to press harder on the accelerator.

  It may not be a C-Class, A6, 3 Series or Cayman, but the game new Ford Focus EcoBoost is capable of holding its own in the fast lane of the A1 — with all of 1.6 litres and a turbocharger at work. In sixth gear, it settles into a busy but unstressed 4,000-plus rpm in sixth gear as it approaches 200 km/h. The motor music stays uptempo until heavier traffic on the approach to Dortmund starts to force braking and downshifts. Oh, well …

  The postcard area I had just departed, a short distance north, is easy to access quickly but a world away from the bustle of the Dusseldorf corridor. This is the so-called land of the water castles, in the region of North Rhine Westphalia, and it is mostly flat or gently rolling land, carpeted by fertile farm fields. It is Germany’s biggest agriculture region.

  Off the autobahn, storybook rural homes and villages pass by with regularity, and the road choices are plentiful for anyone with a map and a sense of direction — or a GPS. The water castles, named for their moats, dot the countryside. For instance, the massive Nordkirchen Palace has a virtual lake for its moat, and the rambling grounds and forest outside the water perimeter define a quiet park. The castle has been dubbed the Versailles of Westphalia, and makes for an impressive stop.

  But the history of this region was not only written in the castles but in the small cities that bred the religious, political and business leaders of the day. They came from places such as Osnabruck and Munster, and the region of the water castles is also dubbed Munsterland.
  Munster is a wonderfully compact and comfortable city that is just far enough off the main tourism path to keep the crowds down, yet still historic and attractive.

  Its original centre is distinguished by its bumpy cobblestone roads, which twist and amble uphill to the dominant position held by the darkly historic St. Lamberti church. Steps from there is the Town Hall, where the Peace of Westphalia treaty was signed in 1648 (ending the Thirty Years war), and which is open to visitors.

  Just 60 km to the northeast is the city of Osnabruck, which also played a key role in the Westphalia treaty but was otherwise a religious rival to Munster. In Osnabruck, the maze of medieval lanes converge on a cobblestone main square that is bordered at one end by the city’s Gothic city hall and massive St. Marien church adjacent to it.

  Surrounding the square are the tall, narrow merchant buildings that were once damaged by Second World War bombs, but have since been rebuilt in the half-timbered style of their predecessors — which were originally constructed in the 14th and 15th century heyday of the Hanseatic League. These rise behind the outdoor patios that rim the square, and the whole area bustles with shoppers, strollers and socializers.

  The drive between Munster and Osnabruck can be accomplished with a relatively quick blast on the A37 autobahn, but a much more scenic way to get it done is on the rural highways that connect the two. Drivers can, for instance, jump onto the 64 road west to Telgte, then the 51 northwest through Glandorf and Bad Iburg before reaching Osnabruck.

  Yes, it will take longer, especially as the rural landscape keeps imposing photo stops. But it’s worth the delay.

  
  

  

  
  2:00 pm on December 24, 2011