Caption this! (Cubans escaping on floating taxi)

[Uncledave]

June 8: A group of 13 Cubans set sail for the United States in a vintage blue taxicab converted into a boat. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.

Today show

[bigdaddygop_nc]

Used taxicab -- 2500 pesos
Used boat -- 2000 pesos
50 rolls of duct tape -- 1000 pesos
90 miles to freedom with a dozen friends --- PRICELESS

[meandog]

Just goes to prove the axiom that "necessity (or in Cuban vernacular "enslavement") is the mother of invention!"

[strange1]

Yep alls that's missing is Jesse JAmes Maltese cross on the roof and you'd have a Monstaer Garage winner. In fact didn't he make a pontoon boat from a bus?

[kevkrom]

"What do you mean, 'the meter's still running'?"

[numberonepal]

Does it have a hemi?
SWEET!

[numberonepal]

Make a raft out of old tires...no points and we send you back.

Oh come on, they get points for courage.

[Jokelahoma]

My thoughts exactly. Thousands upon thousand of illegals cross the border from a reasonably safe, democratic country into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California every day, and we're supposed to welcome them because they do jobs Americans "won't do". A few people risk life and limb to create a boat out of a taxi to flee a brutal dictatorship and a life of poverty, and we're waiting to send them back to a certain jail term.

Man... if only those Cubans didn't tend to vote Republican, we'd hear about how this is unfair.

[RicocheT]

Love the pic! I bet an interior shot would show some nice tuck and roll upholstery.

[Buddy Ryan]

Too bad Ted Kennedy wasn't driving one of these 30 years ago.

[mikrofon]

Pimp My Rowboat

[TBP]

"I told you, Jose, you should have painted it YELLOW! tehn you can get a medallino when we get to Nueva York."

[TBP]

"I told you, Jose, you should have painted it YELLOW! Then you can get a medallion when we get to Nueva York."

[Redleg Duke]

Of course it does...those Cubans will become US Citizens and then vote Republican!

[FroedrickVonFreepenstein]

Well if I had money
Tell you what I’d do
I’d go downtown and buy a mercury or two
Crazy bout a mercury
Lord I’m crazy bout a mercury
I’m gonna buy me a mercury
And cruise it up and down the road

Well the girl I love
I stole her from a friend
He got lucky, stole her back again
She heard he had a mercury
Lord she’s crazy bout a mercury
I’m gonna buy me a mercury
And cruise it up and down the road

Well hey now mama
You look so fine
Ridin round in your mercury 49
Crazy bout a mercury
Lord I’m crazy bout a mercury
I’m gonna buy me a mercury
And cruise it up and down the road

Well my baby went out
She didn’t stay long
Bought herself a mercury, come a cruisin home
She’s crazy bout a mercury
Yeah she’s crazy bout a mercury
And cruise it up and down the road

Well if I had money
I tell you what I’d do
I’d go downtown and buy me a mercury or two
Crazy bout a mercury
I’m gonna buy me a mercury
And cruise it up and down the road

[DumpsterDiver]

I wish we could bring these vehicles to the US as a symbol of peoples' desire for freedom.

I agree. Those freedom boats belong in the Smithsonian.

[george wythe]

Why are people leaving a Workers' Paradise with free health care, free education, and free cradle-to-grave care?

Why would anyone leave Castro's pluralistic democracy for the decadent capitalism and imperialistic tyranny offered by mean Republicans?

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

That picture reminds me of the blue Checker my mother used to own during the early '80s.

You'd be surprised at how many Cuban political refugees we could fit in there!

:7)

[NRA2BFree]

Here's a pic of Cubans coming across the Florida Straits in a 1951 Chevy truck raft. Ingenious guys.

http://havanajournal.com/culture_comments/A735_0_3_0_M/

What's sad is that these people who are fleeing a dictator are returned to Cuba where they are no doubt punished severely and yet, we allow Mexico to invade our country with no punishment. Our immigration priorities are so messed up.

[DumpsterDiver]

Here's a thread from March that you might enjoy reading.

They tried sailing a Chevy, then they gave the Buick a go
Picture of the  truck/boat.

SOME Cubans are so desperate to cross the Florida Straits for a new life in America that they have attempted the journey on surfboards, in bathtubs and even in converted refrigerators. But none has been as determined, or as ingenious, as Luis Grass.

Señor Grass, 30, whose two previous attempts to make the voyage in propeller-driven vintage cars ended in glorious, headline-grabbing failure, has finally arrived in the United States with his family after his third try.

This time he came overland — an epic, 24-day, 1,140-mile journey. "Trying to cross the Florida Straits on my floating cars was easier, I can tell you that," a beaming Señor Grass said in Miami at the end of a journey that took him, his wife and five-year-old son through snake-infested forests and out of sight of hostile border guards in six countries.

Señor Grass and his long-suffering wife, Isora, 27 — he thanked her for going along with his "crazy schemes" — carried their son Angel Luis from San José, Costa Rica, where their journey began on February 16, through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, making their way on foot, by hitchhiking, and in taxis and buses, to the U.S.

SNIP

[mother22wife21]

Love your name.
Signed
Abby Normal