Eight Cubans who tried to motor to freedom on a rigged Buick sedan are returned to the island. The fate of three of their traveling companions is still in limbo.

  BY TERE FIGUERAS

  Nine days after they slipped away from the Havana coast in an airtight vintage sedan, eight of the Cubans who were found floating in the Buick car-boat were returned to the island Tuesday, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed.

  The eight Cubans -- part of a group of 11 that have been on a Coast Guard cutter since they were picked up in the Florida Straits -- were dropped off at the Cuban port of Bahia de Cabañas at 10 a.m., said spokesman Lt. Tony Russell.

  The Coast Guard also confirmed reports that the 1959 Buick, like the Chevy ''truck boat'' that failed in a similar attempt last year, was sunk as a ``hazard to navigation.''

  The fate of the remaining three Cubans, a married couple and their 4-year-old son, remained in limbo Tuesday as lawyers hoping to gain their entry to the U.S. awaited a ruling from a federal judge.

  A temporary injunction bars the Coast Guard from repatriating Luis Grass Rodríguez, his wife Isora Hernández and son, Angel Luis, before 5 p.m. today, when U.S. District Court Judge Federico A. Moreno is expected announce his ruling.

  Grass and his wife were among three people aboard the Buick -- which was fitted into a boat prow and powered by makeshift propellers welded to the drive shaft -- who made a similarly risky venture aboard the nautically rigged Chevy pickup last year.

  All the Chevy riders were sent back to Cuba, but Grass was granted interviews at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to apply for political asylum. Lawyers for the exile group the Democracy Movement, who filed the motion last week asking Moreno to intervene, say Grass' asylum status has yet to be finalized.

  Under U.S. immigration policy, Cubans interdicted at sea are usually returned to the island, while those who make it to U.S. soil are generally allowed to stay.

  In the days since the seafoam Buick was spotted by the Coast Guard chugging through the sea, the plight of the 11 Cubans dubbed ''the autonauts,'' has sparked
  international attention and ire from several Cuban American activists.

  The return of the eight Cubans -- including Marcial Basanta López, one of the masterminds behind both the Chevy and Buick ventures -- prompted harsh words from the Cuban American National Foundation.

  ''You don't need a long discourse on the need for people to seek freedom. You just need to look at pictures of that car and that truck,'' said executive director Joe Garcia, who called the Bush administration's Cuba policy ``at best no policy and at worst simple pandering.''

  The fact that the Cubans in the Buick were the center of worldwide attention -- garnering headlines and commentary as far away as Scotland and Japan -- puts them at even more of a risk, Garcia said.

  ''These people are the embodiment of the struggle for freedom,'' he said.

  A crestfallen cousin of Basanta agreed.

  ''It's unbelievable,'' said Kiriat López, who now lives in Lake Worth and drove down to Miami this week to follow the proceedings in Moreno's court.

  Basanta, a one-time tae kwan do champion with Cuba's national team, had refused to bring his wife and two children along for the Chevy voyage.

  But Basanta -- like his fellow truckboaters -- was under constant suspicion, his home raided by security agents and his telephone line ripped out.

  Frustrated, Basanta, Grass and some friends plotted another attempt, this time using a friend's Buick. This time, Basanta brought his wife and their son and daughter.

  López said he still holds out hope that Grass, who grew up in the same Havana neighborhood as López and his cousin, would not be sent back.

  ''Three is better than nothing,'' he said.

  Herald staff writer Charles Rabin contributed to this report.