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Lowrider Cars: People
built 613 days ago
Lowriders can refer to lowrider cars or the people who drive lowriders. Lowriders are cars whose suspension has been dropped so that it rides closer to the ground. If you’ve ever seen pimp my ride, you know what a lowrider is. Lowriders were first popular in Mexico but today are popular all over the place, especially with hip hop artists who have their lowriders custom finished with custom paint jobs and interiors. The standard custom interiors for lowriders are usually leather or velvet and the exterior often includes some sort of flame motif.
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The origin of the lowrider car is legend, with many different versions in circulation. My favourite one (that makes any sense) is the following: Somewhere around the Southwest in the late 1940s, big cars whose trunks were loaded with material rode very low and close to the ground; these cars and the Mexican Americans that used to drive them became known as "lowriders". At some point, people started to lower their cars to highlight the Mexican connotations (although other customizers were lowering their cars in order to present less air resistance and drive faster). Limits on lowering were imposed by the Highway Patrol, so the lowriders developed hydraulic systems to raise their cars and fool the cops when they were around, only to lower them again in safer moments. These systems have been in constant evolution, resulting in powerful and elaborate contraptions that now enable cars to hop and dance in extreme ways. (Bicycles and car models are options for beginner customizers who can't afford an automobile or aren't of driving age.)
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"Lowriders are hard-working people who happen to like old cars." Berrios thinks back to one evening while out watching the cars on Mission cruise up and down the block. Paddy wagons line the street like ice cream trucks on a hot summer day, waiting for the lowriders to get out of hand.
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In southern California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and other western states, people in Hispanic communities often transform old cars into customized lowriders. Since the 1950s, and especially since the early 1970s, lowrider clubs have flourished in the American Southwest. The lowrider--which refers to both the owner and the car--modifies the frame and suspension to lower the car, rebuilds the engine, installs a special hydraulic system to make the car "dance," reworks the body, refinishes the car with custom paint, and reupholsters the interior. Usually, little evidence remains of the car's original identity. The lowrider wants others to see the car for what it now is--"clean and mean," reborn as a work of art.
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Eventually, he painted scores of lowriders on canvas—red cars, green cars with flames on their front ends, cars with their front ends lowered to the ground. The paintings found their way into galleries, where they sold for just enough money to keep Gaitan from starving. "People would buy an 8-foot painting for $40," he recalls.
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