On Venezuelan roads, old cars prevail, break down everywhere, becoming like Cuba

[Demovictory9]

Economic Collapse Has Venezuela’s Cars Looking a Lot Like Cuba’s
The collapse of Venezuela’s middle class and car manufacturing sectors mean the country’s cars are just getting older and older.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/economic-collapse-has-venezuelas-cars-looking-a-lot-like-cubas


Decades ago Cuba found itself effectively isolated by international sanctions, forced into desperate resourcefulness to keep its automobiles on the road. In the new millennium, the process is repeating itself in another Latin American country now, Venezuela, where people are barely able to hold their cars together as a result of sanctions and economic downturn. Some of the causes of Venezuela's car crisis echo those facing U.S. drivers, raising the question as to whether Venezuelans' difficulties foreshadow hard times for U.S. drivers.

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He's philosophical about the need to keep repairing his vintage truck: “It’s not like the current cars that have a computer and have a lot of things at the system level. I say that (old trucks) are trustworthy and more reliable because they use nothing but gasoline and water.”

People like Ron are keeping Caracas' street-corner mechanics increasingly busy these days as they try to coax a little more life out of aging vehicles in a country whose new car market collapsed and where few can afford to trade up for a better used one.

Venezuela's vehicle industry produced only eight trucks last year – and nary a single car – according to the Chamber of Venezuelan Manufacturers of Automotive Products. At the century's peak, in 2006-2007, some 172,000 vehicles rolled out of plants operated by Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Chrysler and others.

Imports haven't filled the gap. In 2021, only 1,886 new light vehicles were sold in Venezuela, according to estimates from LMC Automotive, an auto industry consulting firm. That was about double the number in 2020, but less than 1% of what was sold in 2007, when new light vehicle sales peaked at 437,675.

A man tries to repair his car, parked on the side of the road that connects La Guaira with Caracas.
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Venezuela's roads are full of high-mileage, money-sucking vehicles, many that predate the socialist transformation ushered in by the late President Hugo Chavez at the turn of the century.


Ramon Arellano repairs the brakes of a customer's car on a street of the Catia neighbourhood in Caracas, Venezuela.


A cat rests inside an abandoned, burned-out car in the El Paraiso neighbourhood of Caracas, Venezuela.


A derelict car with "For spare parts," written in Spanish on its windshield sits parked in the San Juan neighbourhood.

Carlos Valero repairs his car's exhaust system, in the San Agustin neighbourhood of Caracas.


https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/300594582/on-venezuelan-roads-old-cars-prevail-break-down-everywhere