The Coast Guard declined to comment on the fate of the car or its occupants, citing a policy not to comment on an "ongoing mission.''
But exile leaders said they have been told the Cubans will be repatriated.
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Once back in Cuba, Basanta and Grass -- now without a truck to perform errands for meager incomes -- once again found themselves desperate and searching for another way out of Cuba.
A friend, identified only as Rafael, owned a Buick.
'We would ask why weren't they using the Buick to earn money, and they told us, `It needs repairs,' '' said Lourdes Grass, sister of Luis, from her home in Havana's San Miguel del Padrón. ``I guess those were the repairs they were making. Pretty intelligent, no?''
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Lourdes Grass said the gifted tinkers -- well-practiced in maintaining the prerevolutionary automobiles that chug through Cuba's streets -- used the same mechanical plan on the Buick as on the Chevy, save for a few design changes.
''I'm told it is the same design as the first: They crafted propellers and attached them to the drive shaft, and used the original car motor to go,'' she said.
But the '51 Chevy was kept afloat by a makeshift pontoon fashioned from steel drums.
The Buick -- at first mistakenly identified by the Coast Guard as a Ford Fairlane -- was tucked into a boat prow painted the same shade of green as the car's body.
The interior of the Buick had been welded water-tight, and the hard-top, tail-finned car still had its wheels when it embarked around 8 p.m. Monday, slipping away from the Cuban coastline, relatives said.
The Chevy still had its tires, as well.
Basanta, speaking last year with The Herald after his return to Havana, explained the group's reason for leaving the Chevy roadworthy: The Cubans planned to pop off the pontoon once they reached shore, and drive to a relative's home in Lake Worth.
