Death Way, just outside La Paz, Bolivia

 https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/dtbs8j/called_death_way_one_of_the_most_dangerous_roads

Maverick in Paraguay

 https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-cohort/in-motion-classic-73-76-ford-maverick-in-motion-down-south/

it's hard to imagine how focused on being malacious the off roaders had to be, to pick the area with the 3000 year old geoglyphs, it wasn't by accident. These are at Alto Barranco in the Tarapacá region, in the Atacama desert

 via https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2024/09/geoglyphs-damaged-in-chile.html
via https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/24/science/geoglyphs-atacama-desert-rallies.html

Thanks to Gary, we can get a look at this cool bug in Ecuador!

Brujitas (in Columbia) are old motorcycles mounted to wooden platforms with benches, pushing those along abandoned railroad tracks for tourists to get a look at the rainforest/jungle

San Cipriano, Columbia, is located several miles within the jungle. 

Brujitas were invented out of necessity to move people and goods between San Cipriano and the other towns such as Zaragosa, on the railway that are adjacent to the highway

There are about 5 dozen men making a living from giving tourists these rail tours

Skip the first minute:

http://www.eastvillagenomad.com/2019/04/meeting-brujitas.html

https://seenbyceline.com/colombias-southwest-pacific-students-thumps-up-salsa-brujitas-bruselas/

https://www.thedrive.com/news/colombias-motorcycle-rail-cars-are-terrifyingly-simple-public-transportation

A BIG thank you to Gary, who is one of the 3 people to ever help me share the interesting cars from other parts of the world, by simply taking a handful of photos while out walking about, so the rest of us can see what ordinary commuters are like in other countries

Cuenca is the 3rd largest city in Ecuador with a population of around 750,000 of which are approximately 10,000 North American and European expats. 

It is the cultural capital of Ecuador - art, music, textiles, jewelry, and literature 

 It is also a world heritage site, located in a valley in the Andes mountains at an elevation of 8500 feet, 30 miles from the pacific coast.

Year round daytime temperatures ranges between 55 and 75. No snow, furnaces, or a/c. 

 We walk everywhere and my vehicular observations are based on that. I’ve written all that because the result is that the only vehicular rust comes from broken paint due to accidents. 

 At least 3/4 the vehicles have standard transmission. - I see maybe 2 ford f-150’s a day. 

About 20% of cars are “A” size (think Chevy Spark.) - Stillantis has a good presence with Peugeot and Citroen brands 

Chevrolet has a ton of D-Max smallish 4 door pickups and seems to dominate that segment. A lot of Aveo’s cars here too

I see about 3 of the 1970’s miniature pickups a day. 

 Misc:

 I’ve seen maybe two Mercedes Benz a week, one each Tesla and BMW. 

-Also saw an either Land Cruiser or Land Rover stake truck in a neighboring town and the rear of another original Mini as it zipped down the street from our apartment. 

 Now the bad news: about 15% of the new vehicles are Chinese- mainly pick-up trucks and SUV’s. Many brands, mostly all ICE power. An Ecuadorian friend who just bought a Citroen said people are buying Chinese because they are cheaper but they depreciate quickly and the quality is less than the competition.

thank you Gary! 

about a dozen years ago, I had a girlfriend that could afford to vacation in Jamaica, for the diving, and she sprung to pay for me to vacation with her, and I was fascinated by the cars and mini vans that are not found in the USA at all.

I am intrigued by the variety of the way different countries arrive at the same goal, daily drivers, but from different ways, which I will suppose are subjected to importing, tariffs, taxes based on the size and cost of the vehicles (Europe had that high tax on 4 wheel vehicles that prompted the manufacturing of Piaggo Apes, Morgan 3 wheelers, Isettas, and other motorcycle engine powered cycle cars) and not having the high level of federal crash safety testing etc. 

Darryl in Australia sent me a LOT of terrific photos, dozens of them, of all the late 60s and early 70s Australian cars that are interesting, and Nik in Brazil shared a lot of Brazilian cars and trucks. I can't recall the nice guys in Budapest by name, but they had a cool website that shared a lot too. 

in 1932 Capt. Lewis Yancey piloted a Pitcairn Autogiro, christened Miss Champion for the spark plug company, from Miami to Havana at the start of a Yucatan archeological expedition.

exploring the Mayan ruins of the Temple of the Soldiers (Chicen-Itza, Yucatán) in February 1932

The year before, he flew it all over America

Champion Spark Plugs bought it to advertise the spark plug company, like a flying billboard, across 21 states, flying 6500 miles, visiting 38 cities with the 1931 Ford National Air Tour

During January 1932, having flown south to avoid the northern winters, Captain Yancey took “Miss Champion” from Miami to Havana, Cuba, where it arrived amidst fanfare and the usual press interest. From there, he flew onward to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula where he used the unique slow flight characteristics of the autogyro to participate in an archaeological exploration of the Mayan pyramids and ruins.

 It proved very effective in this role, spanning many miles of jungle and finding sites that would have been missed by ground search teams. It was a dream opportunity for the Champion Spark Plug Company, which garnered wide attention from its sponsorship of the archaeological research and came away with some absolutely stunning publicity photos.

After the Yucatan expedition, it was retired

It's one of 2 PCA-2 Pitcairn's that survive today in museums

https://issuu.com/eaahq/docs/avt_072422_1_

https://fly.historicwings.com/2012/09/miss-champion/

https://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/lay.htm

Yancey had earned fame on a South America circumnavigation publicity tour of "Pilot Radio" in 1930, when Pilot Radio Company of Brooklyn sent their experimental aircraft radio plane, a “flying laboratory,” on a “good will flight” through Latin America, primarily to publicize their products.

Their subsequent marathon journey around the perimeter of most of the South American continent would be filled with challenges for the radio equipment, the plane, and, most of all, for the men. Traversing oceans, mountains, desert, and jungles, they would set new records for long-distance air-to-ground communications, broadcast to the people of Buenos Aires from the air, meet with U.S. ambassadors, heads of state, and indigenous Amazon natives; they would be briefly imprisoned, search for a lost flier, and visit exotic and unique places. 

Along with Yancey, was Zeh Bouck, who visited the White House in 1930 and met with President Hoover, and used this expedition to represent the Hoover administration, acting as an unofficial U.S. ambassador to South and Central American nations.

He was one of the first radio columnists, writing for the New York Sun by 1922, and a newsmaker himself. He wrote hundreds of articles for magazines ranging from Boys’ Life to Radio News to Cosmopolitan.

They staked their lives on a plane that developed mechanical problems and could not land on water on a route with few landing areas. How they survived the journey and the true story of what happened during the flight are told for the first time staring on page 95 of https://www.antiquewireless.org/wp-content/uploads/2020-AWA-Review-Vol-33_compressed.pdf

It was the first successful aircraft flight to Bermuda from the United States, and in April, 1930. The plane was a Stinson SM-1FS "Detroiter", Pilot Radio. It ended up crashed and left there.

Why is the flight significant to Bermuda?

The twenties and thirties had great competition for records to be broken in every venue (flagpole sitting for example). One record that had been pursued but failed with cost of lives was the first Great American Journey, a dream of flight to Bermuda from the North American mainland. 

It was long before the capabilities of sending a radio beacon beam to an aircraft to utilize safe navigation. The Bermuda Trade Development Board earlier offered a 25 thousand dollar prize for the first flight to Bermuda. No airport existed in Bermuda, thus a float plane would be necessary.

http://www.hangar9aeroworks.com/BermudaStinson.html

http://www.oldqslcards.com/UNUSUAL_PLACE.pdf

an Argentinean manufactured Ford Taunus Ghia in front of the oldest Catholic Church in Ecuador (2nd oldest in South America.) Built in 1534. Thanks Gary and Matius!

Gary winters in Cuenca, Ecuador, and sent me this example of the unusual vehicles they have there ... thanks Gary!

the Nissan 1400 was a small truck that was manufactured by the Japanese automaker between 1971 and 2008 in South Africa, this one got an engine upgrade, a Honda CBR 1000cc motorcycle engine

https://www.motor1.com/news/555268/nissan-1400-honda-engine-video/

The Ford B-100 thanks Ben D!

 Before the United States had the Expedition and Excursion, the biggest SUV in the lineup was the 1978 through 1996 Bronco. However, Latin America had a precursor to the big SUVs from the Blue Oval, the B-100.

Sold south of the U.S. border between 1963 and 1994, the B-100 filled a niche as a family hauler

https://www.ford-trucks.com/articles/ford-b-100-history

the Jorge Nicolini private museum and restoration center, in Peru. He was a go cart racing champion, and his father and uncles were the reps for Packard and Mack trucks in Peru

his first car was a 1925 Lincoln that was being used as a 40 year old taxi, in Peru... he saw it driving by and was struck that he had to have it. We all know that compulsive desire to own some car at some time in our youth.

Next he bought a Model T from up in the Andes mountains, won a contest for best preseved oldest Ford, where the prize was a 1965 Taunus, which he sold and bought 10 old cars with

 In 2002 he opened the museum of the cars he'd stored for so long, because the conditions of the countries government did not allow him to open a museum previously,  to show the Peruvians and the foreigners the cars that were in Peru, how people lived in Peru in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and to which Peruvian families these cars belonged to 

and Petrolicious made a feature article about it https://petrolicious.com/articles/this-museum-in-lima-peru-documents-its-countrys-automotive-history  if you want to read more

https://slowcarfasthouse.com/2019/10/05/peru-lima-auto-museum-museo-de-autos-nicolini/

https://www.facebook.com/museodeautosnicolini