1952 Ford F-5

"Ford trucking costs less and Ford trucks last longer!"

There's some truth in that slogan, although we'd bet that the copywriters of this 1952 ad would never have imagined that a Ford truck would need to last more than six decades in daily use. Pickups and light trucks such as this 1952 Ford F-5 perfectly suit the automotive needs of rural Cuba, and therefore you still see a lot of them today. Contrary to privately owned cars, privately owned trucks were always considered important to the socialist community, and the bureaucratic strings were held a little bit less tight. The truck owners usually do good extra business with smaller jobs on the side, and the officials usually pretend to be blind on one eye. That symbiosis enables a more or less working system of haulers for smaller transport needs, parallel to the bigger state owned transport companies.

Our pictured Ford, of course, doesn't run on its gas-guzzling original engine anymore. "We've installed a Perkins Diesel engine, for much better economy", told us the proud owner. Regular maintenance is a breeze as the entire front clip is easily removable. Ford used to apply a similar looking design to all of its trucks, from the ½ ton pickup F-1 to the heavy-duty three ton F-8. They only differed in the cabin size, which makes it difficult to tell at a glance which version of F-trucks it is. While its owner doesn't care for these fine details, he sure does care for the truck's 1½ tons load capacity — for him the Ford is merely a tool.