The LIFE and TIMES of ‘LOWRIDER’
Car magazine that’s ceasing publication influenced Chicano culture in California
“There used to be a lot of pretty girls on the magazine. The mentality back then was, ‘The better-looking the car, the better-looking girl you’re going to get.’” JERRY NAVARRO, LONGTIME “LOWRIDER” READER
JLos Angeles ERRY NAVARRO didn’t care about having a phone as a boy. He wanted a car. But what he really, really wanted was a lowrider: a white, 1958 hardtop Chevrolet Impala with a red interior.
So he started reading Lowrider magazine around 1985 in his hometown of East Los Angeles to indulge his fantasies of car ownership. Later, when he began working in the auto industry, the magazine became a rich and vital source of information about the car world.
“You wanted to see what was the hottest car, who was selling what, what tires were the best, and who was doing good interior. … Back then there weren’t (smart) phones so you had to get information from magazines,” said the 45-year-old technician from Chuy’s Auto Electric Shop in East L.A.
Those days will soon be over, though. Lowrider, an icon of Chicano culture for more than 40 years that offered a mix of cultural and political content alongside photographs of unique vintage cars, will cease to print.
The magazine is one of 19 titles that TEN: The Enthusiast Network will shutter by year’s end, the media company announced Dec. 6.
“Simply put, we need to be where our audience is,” wrote MotorTrend Group President and General Manager Alex Wellen in a memo obtained by Folio. “Tens of millions of fans visit Motor Trend’s digital properties every month, with the vast majority of our consumption on mobile, and three out of every four of our visitors favoring digital content over print.”
A spokesperson for Motor Trend Group would not comment on Lowrider’s digital future but issued a statement to The Times.
“We remain committed to providing our fans and advertisers quality automotive storytelling and journalism across all of our content platforms and we are doubling down on our best-in-class digital product experiences, while maintaining our support of the three most popular, profitable and strategic brands across digital and print — Motor Trend, Hot Rod and Four Wheeler,” the statement read.
TEN Publishing, Motor Trend Group and Lowrider staff would not comment further on the closure.
For decades, Lowrider played a critical role in forming the culture and image of lowriding, its lifestyle and aesthetics. Particularly popular among Mexican Americans, the magazine was as much a statement about Chicano identity as it was about the long, ground-hugging vintage cars.
Lowrider was first published in 1977, founded by San Jose State students Larry Gonzalez, David Nuñez and Sonny Madrid (Nuñez died in 2011, Madrid in 2015). With a shared mission to feature the Chicano lowrider community, the trio pitched in a few thousand dollars each to get the magazine off the ground and distributed its first copies — roughly 1,000 — in January that year.
The DIY publication struggled at first. Growth was slow, but sales picked up when Lowrider began featuring bikini models on its covers at the end of 1979.
For Navarro, the bikini-clad women were part of the magazine’s appeal.
“There used to be a lot of pretty girls on the magazine,” he said in a phone interview. “The mentality back then was, ‘The better-looking the car, the better-looking girl you’re going to get.’” That combination of gorgeous cars and women, he