THE ART OF LOWRIDING
L'art du lowriding (les lowriders sont des voitures dont le système de suspension a été modifié pour rapprocher le bas de caisse le plus possible du sol)
A Los Angeles, depuis les années 1950, on bricole les voitures dans les quartiers latino. Depuis cette période, la mode du « lowriding » ne faiblit pas. Bien au contraire, elle se renouvelle et s’étend sans cesse ! Sur de gros véhicules anciens repeints avec goût, on change la suspension, on retouche les jantes… et on part en promenade en faisant des bonds sur le bitume. En route !
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — At one end of the parking lot, Anthony Johnson was using a remote control to bounce an apple-green 1963 Chevrolet Impala, its nose eight feet in the air. At the other, Greg Dixon was lofting a silver 2001 Lincoln Town Car sideways, raising the driver’s side front wheel off the ground as he screeched around a corner. 2.The cars wore emblems, and the drivers hoodies or T-shirts, marking them as members of the Ultimate Riders Car Club, an area group of lowriders holding their monthly meeting at Fairmount Park in this city about 50 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
3.On the outside, the vintage cars seemed identical to lowriders that could be seen cruising during the 1960s and ’70s, when rolling examples of Southern California’s homegrown road art met for weekly exhibitions. But under the hoods of the pinstriped, chromed-out cruisers was something unusual. These lowriders all sported massive motors, late-model Detroitbuilt V-8s capable of two to three times the horsepower of the engines originally installed in the vintage cars.
PIMP YOUR RIDE
4. What used to be a world of “low, slow and show” has turned into “low, show and go.” For decades, the Los Angeles cruising scene was
all about the look. Custom builders chopped the bodies on their classic American cars, then altered the suspension to bring them as close as possible to the pavement. They decorated the vehicles with outrageous paint, pinstripes and chrome, and paraded them slowly down boulevards and in front of car show judges.
5.The showy automobiles were a point of ethnic pride and cultural heritage, and the lowrider car clubs offered a sense of community. Kids who grew up watching fathers, uncles and cousins cruising dreamed of owning their own “shorts” one day.
6.The cruising scene helped spawn the “browneyed soul” music born in East Los Angeles in the 1960s. Later, the lowrider cars, including some of the ones on display recently at Fairmount Park, became fixtures in movies and pop and rap music videos, such as “Straight Outta Compton,” Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” and the Game’s “My Life,” featuring Lil Wayne. They took top prizes at car shows, winning points for most creative paint job, most complex pinstriping or most extravagant chrome.
7.Then, having reached a pinnacle of artfulness, lowrider builders like Ultimate Riders co-founder Vernon Maxwell started pumping up the power, bringing bigger engines and more ingenuity to an area that had been mostly ignored.
PIMP YOUR ENGINES
8. Maxwell and other builders started adding $25,000 motors to cars whose owners already had spent $40,000 to $60,000 restoring and customizing their vintage ’60s cruisers. “We used to be low and slow, but under the hood, we weren’t doing that much,” said Lowrider Magazine editor Joe Ray. “Then we started investing in performance.” 9.Over the last couple of years, lowriders competing in car shows started winning prizes for their “low, show and go” cars, as judges who study creativity in body design, paint jobs, pinstriping and hydraulic lift systems began awarding extra points for drivetrains. The message spread through the lowrider community: “If you have the ultimate paint job, you better have the ultimate engine,” said Ray, who often is called upon to judge lowriders at car shows.
THEY DON’T COME FOR CHEAP
10. A ground-up restoration on a classic 1964 Impala — which is to lowriding what the 1932 Ford “Deuce Coupe” is to hot rods — can run up to $40,000. A top paint job, from a master like Riverside painter and pinstriper Mike Lamberson, can add $10,000 to $20,000. Engraving on the motor can cost several thousand more. An LS7 Corvette engine will cost $18,000 to $20,000 to buy, and $15,000 more to install, accessorize and customize. That could bring the total price to well over $75,000, Maxwell said, for one of his customized Impalas.
11.Despite the extra beef in the engine compartment, Vernon’s vehicles and the like don’t have race car suspension or use high-performance tires. So, Lowrider Magazine general manager Rudy Rivas and others said, owners of cars with huge horsepower haven’t started drag racing. “We’re still doing traditional lowriding, going low and slow,” Rivas said. “But we’re getting more respect from the hot rod and performance guys.” 12.The art of lowriding was born in LA’s Eastside and was exclusive to the Latino community before it began to be adopted by African-American enthusiasts. Today, the car customizers featured on Lowrider Magazine’s “Roll Models” video series come from mixed ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. “We have blondhaired, blue-eyed guys in the Midwest who are doing it,” Rivas said. “And lowriding is huge in Japan too.” Parallel with the changes under the hood, lowriders have moved out of the 'hood, toward the mainstream.