Jul 13, 2015 4 min read

Even if “Cuban Chrome” were only about restoring antique American cars in Cuba, it would be worth watching. But, in fact, the new Discovery Channel series has a badly kept secret: It’s really about daily life in a country about which most Americans know very little.

“Cuban Chrome,” premiering at 10 p.m. Monday, is the first American-made television series filmed entirely in Cuba. Even more intriguing is the fact that access was granted to Pilgrim Studios (“Fast N’ Loud,” “Street Outlaws”) before the U.S. announced it would re-establish full diplomatic relations with Cuba. As we’ll see in a future episode, American camera crews were on hand to record Cuban reaction when President Obama announced his intention to lift the decades-long trade embargo.

That trade embargo, in force since 1960, is one of the reasons that the Cubans we meet in “Chrome” are so obsessively devoted to their old American Chevrolets and Buicks. Think about what your own car may look like after five or 10 years and you’ll have a new appreciation for the loving care with which members of the A Lo Cubano Car Club treat their far older vehicles.

The embargo has made it virtually impossible to get parts for the vintage American cars, but car club members like Fernando and Roberto scour the island for parts that will work. In some cases, says Demetrio, who uses his old car as a gypsy cab, you can make do with a similar part from a Russian or Chinese car.

At one point, we watch Demetrio and his sons repair the steering column on their car with a part the sons got for 30 pesos (Cuban money that can be converted to actual dollars and is therefore valued more).

Demetrio isn’t happy. He’d told the boys they could not spend more than $25, but their source, Lazaro, can charge whatever he wants because there’s no competition, and if someone wants to restore a car, they’ll pay, even if the 5 peso price difference is more than they’d make in a day.

Many of the cars are used for street racing, but in truth, it’s pride of ownership and a heightened aesthetic appreciation of the beauty of classic American cars that motivate men to spend years and a lot of very hard-earned money restoring the vehicles to pristine beauty and keep them running. For older Cubanos, the shiny old cars are rolling souvenirs of the time when the island was a playground for American tourists, gamblers, mobsters, the Hollywood set and others with money to spend.

There’s a subliminal aspirational quality beneath the nostalgia the men display through the attention they pay to every detail of their restoration projects.

Daily life in Cuba is austere, but people get by by being inventive and adaptive. It’s as simple as Demetrio’s two adult sons sharing a single bicycle as if they were 12-year-olds, as they go in search for an important part. Or Demetrio using a piece of cardboard as a gasket because rubber is too scarce and costly.

The series will follow Roberto and Fernando as they restore an ancient vehicle that looks like the proverbial bucket of bolts.

At the same time, you’ll see Demetrio and his sons attempt to restore their own vintage car to the level of being able to compete in A Lo car club events.

Sure, you’ll learn about old cars, but you’ll also learn about Cuban people, and if the first episode is any indication, one thing you’ll learn is that they aren’t all that different from Americans.