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Cuban refugee 1948 Mercury taxi boat
Cuba · Boat-car · built by Rafael Diaz Rey
| Also known as | Taxi-boat |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Rafael Diaz Rey |
| Country | Cuba |
| Built | 2005– |
| Type | Boat-car |
| Status | Homemade |
| Use | Civilian |
Specifications need checking. Some figures here were taken from the archive and have not been confirmed against a source.
The 1948 Mercury taxi boat was the third Cuban car-boat escape attempt in two years. It was built by Rafael Diaz Rey, a mechanic. On 7 June 2005 the blue Mercury, with a white top and a boat-shaped prow added at the front, was spotted by a US Customs and Border Protection aircraft and stopped by the Coast Guard about 14 to 25 miles south of the Lower Keys. An official said it looked like "a floating taxi".
People aboard
About 14 Cubans were on board, including Diaz, his wife and two children. Diaz had tried before: in 1994 he turned back in a 1940s Buick because of electrical problems, and in February 2004 he was aboard the converted 1959 Buick. His family had won US travel documents in the annual visa lottery, but the Cuban government would not let them leave. Because those documents were valid, the four were allowed into the United States, while the other ten were to be returned to Cuba. The Mercury itself was sunk, as was usual for intercepted car-boats.
How the taxi was propelled is not recorded in the archive. Reports noted that earlier Cuban car-boats used a propeller driven from the car's drive shaft.
2 Photographs
4 photographs in the archive folder. Click any image to view it full size.
3 Related vehicles
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