The old and powerful high-consumption cars that abound on the streets of Venezuela are beginning to be a problem for their owners, who see how the significant increase in the price of gasoline, almost free until a few days ago, forces them to give up magic and the romanticism of having in your possession the beauty of the four wheels of yesteryear.
"It consumes more than most new cars, which are 4-cylinder, lighter," said electrician Miguel Rodríguez of his old 1973 Dodge Dart GT, a heavy device that has remained parked since gasoline rose in price to end of May in Venezuela.
The vehicle is powered by a massive 8-cylinder engine, capable of effortlessly pushing the heavy bodywork of the "Valiant," as this model is also known, which first rolled off assembly plants in the United States in the mid-1960s.
"Obviously, consumption is twice, twice what a normal car consumes, one of the newest ones," adds Rodríguez about his car, a necessary good in Venezuela after public transport collapsed three years ago.
The cheapest gasoline in the world?
Venezuelans had the cheapest gasoline in the world for decades, as they used to say with pride.
Fuel in this country, where the largest proven oil reserves on the planet are located, was sold with such a strong subsidy that just one dollar was always enough to fuel various vehicles.
But when the country entered a hyperinflation scenario at the end of 2017 and the Government of Nicolás Maduro avoided making price adjustments, gasoline in Venezuela became practically free.
Last May, only one dollar changed to the official rate of the Central Bank of Venezuela was used to refuel 828,000,000 medium-size vehicles, a phenomenon that stimulated the smuggling of a fuel that the country has imported for years in view of the inoperability of its refineries.
Cheap gasoline also encouraged many to use their old big-engine vehicles, a postcard that is still seen on every street in the country, although less and less.
Memories of a good time
These old vehicles are mostly from the 1970s and 1980s, when Venezuela experienced huge economic growth after nationalizing the oil industry.
Models of family cars from American manufacturers such as Ford and Chevrolet survive from that time, but also Asian SUVs, which Venezuelans became fond of because fuel consumption was never a problem.
But at the beginning of the month, an increase in gasoline prices and a new supply scheme took effect, just as Venezuelans suffered from a fuel shortage that lasted for weeks.
Now, Venezuelans will be able to refuel up to 120 subsidized liters each month for less than a dollar in total, but after this consumption each additional liter will be sold for US $ 0.50.
"The subsidized 120 liters I spend them quickly, and to pay for it (the refueling) in dollars that is a lie, that is a lie, obviously, that will have an effect on the fact that I will not use the car as before," Rodríguez said about his old man "Valiant".
As savings alternatives, the 38-year-old man, whose income is around US $ 200 a month, said that he will walk or use a bicycle that he enabled weeks ago, when the fuel shortage hit hard and kept him waiting for days for the supply in the vicinity of a gas station.
"Gas was given away here, and I really never cared about it," he said.
No access to dollars
Several kilometers from Rodríguez's home, in the hot city of Guatire, near Caracas, his father Luis looks with resignation at his old 1983 Ford Mustang, a car he has hardly used since the new coronavirus pandemic and the shortage of gasoline was collected in mid-March last.
"For me it is impossible," he said about paying for gasoline in the US currency, a currency that has become common for all types of commercial transactions in Venezuela. "I don't have access to dollars," he added.
Luis, a 66-year-old pensioner, is one of the nearly seven million people in Venezuela - including public workers and pensioners - who receive the minimum income, less than two dollars a month.
To get by, he continues to do the same jobs he did in his youth: plumbing, masonry, auto mechanics, and repair of electrical appliances.
But for many of these jobs he barely earns income. To repair a blender he charges about 50,000 bolivars, or a quarter of a dollar, for a masonry order a little more, but these have not been common for months.
Still, he doesn't think he's going to sell his old car in the near future, which bears the traces of countless road battles on the rickety bodywork.
"It is a car that does not ask or piston (failure), or anything, loaded with