This project is about the creative ingenuity of the Cuban people. Despite a 50 year blockade imposed by the U.S. government, denying them the benefit of the largest worldwide market of goods and services, they have found a way to make things work. Automobiles were no longer permitted to be exported from the U,S, after 1959, so the Cubans over time removed the U.S. engines and replaced them with fuel efficient diesel engines fromm Japan and China, I have chosen to use the icon of the automobile hood ornament as a symbol of this amazing feat.

 

You will notice a group of hood ornaments that are based on artistic airplanes, and a group of ornaments based on artistic birds, but I think the most amazing are those with an entirely original design, created by bolting the bird to the plane. While this was never done on the original car made in the U.S., the Cuban design fuses the two into something new and entirely different.