High Time for Lowriders

“We are the Picassos of the boulevard. We are the working man’s work of art.”

--Kita Lealao, lowrider.

*

If the car is the signature of America, then the lowrider could be considered a defining mark of the Mexican American.

The car that has swelled the hearts of tough pachucos, prompted serenades by Chicano bands and created an allure for a forbidden ethnic Los Angeles has hit the mainstream.

On Saturday, the Petersen Automotive Museum will launch what it is calling its most comprehensive exhibit to date. A total of 19 cars, bicycles and trucks will be displayed, alongside dozens of photographs chronicling the lives of lowriders throughout California.

The exhibit, “Arte y Estilo: The Lowriding Tradition,” will also include narratives from lowriders themselves, describing their hobby and its connection to their lives and culture.

“Our mission at the museum is [to ask], ‘How does the automobile impact American life and culture in Southern California?’ ” said Nancy Fister, assistant director of the museum. “Nothing fits that better than the lowrider.”

Lowriding first emerged in post-World War II Mexican American working-class communities in the Southwest, according to exhibit curator Denise Sandoval. The postwar economic boom fueled a surge in the car-buying market, but Mexican Americans--like working-class whites with their hot rods--wanted to leave leave their own mark on popular car culture.

Not wanting to be “fast and furious” like hot-rodders, but rather “low and slow” in the suavecito style, Mexican Americans created their “lead-sleds.” Before hydraulics, the cars were lowered literally by bags of sand, cement, bricks or lead in the trunk.

Soon, what were first known as “pachuco cars” took hold among the youth in Mexican American neighborhoods. The pachuco, as Mexican cultural critic Carlos Monsivais explains, “emerged as the first important aesthetic product of migration, the bearer of a new and extremist concept of elegance--he’s a dandy living on the outskirts of fashion--who in the eyes of the Anglos is an outright provocation.” The pachuco becomes an eccentric symbol of the American way of life and eventually stands as an icon of cultural resistance.

This symbolic attitude of defiance, which also defined the zoot-suiters of the World War II era, was embraced by the car enthusiasts, who, along with their chariots, became known as “lowriders.”

The cultural rebellion would continue and become part of a political transition. By the late 1960s, the Chicano movement was picking up steam and along with it, artistic expression in the form of street art. Murals and graffiti were also appearing on the hoods of customized cars.

“[Chicanos] have taken a Detroit machine and we have personalized it,” said Gilbert “Magu” Lujan, a prominent painter who often uses lowrider themes in his work and stylizes lowrider cars. “We Chicano-ized it.” The Virgin of Guadalupe would appear alongside Aztec maidens and images of the mythical Chicano birthplace--Aztlan--on the hoods of Chevys and Cadillacs.

The image of lowriders has continued as a part of contemporary popular culture, in which they’re painted as romantic, young Mexican American men cruising down a boulevard in search of love or a fight or both. The image has nearly become synonymous with Chicano L.A., but it’s an increasingly outdated depiction in a city where Latinos have a fast-growing middle class and considerable political and economic clout.

Still, lowriders are an established subculture, and, though their image has been tarnished somewhat by occasional violence and an unfair blanket association with gangs, true lowriders have no time or desire for criminal activity, according to curator Sandoval.

“That is the biggest perception this show will dispel,” Sandoval said. “All of these are hard-working guys who started in East L.A. but now live in the ‘burbs.”

Creating a sublime lowrider takes discipline, knowledge and money--lots of it. Some lowriders spend as much as $70,000 to spruce up their rides.

A Difficult Mix: Pretty Cars, Women

“If you read the newspapers, you would have thought that everyone was out cruising for the purpose of starting a gang war,” said Roberto Rodriguez, a journalist who has covered the lowriding scene since the late 1960s. “The reality is that most were out for what young people do everywhere else--romance. In those days, I used to say, where else would you get a thousand chances to fall in love? It was the urban equivalent of Disneyland, without the price of admission.”

Still, sporadic violence in recent years led to the end of cruising on L.A. boulevards like Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles. Some lowrider showcases, held in cities throughout the Southwest, are attended by thousands of enthusiasts and participants. (The “Lowrider Boulevard Tour 2000” is at the National Orange Showgrounds in San Bernardino on Sunday.) But some shows have been marred by violent incidents, said Albert de Alba, whose family has won several lowrider competitions.

“Pretty cars attract pretty women and pretty women attract some bad people,” said De Alba, 30. “We are there for the show. None of the owners are out there getting in trouble because we are not there to hook up. We are real to the game, but it’s pretty hard to be a lowrider these days.”

Although the life may be tough, the passion continues and the real lowriders think of themselves as artists--not hoodlums. Each car in the Petersen exhibit is an expression of individualism, where the personality of its maker shines through as brilliantly as the gussied-up chrome.

“Midnight Illusions,” a 1947 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery owned by George Luna, has murals that incorporate icons of Chicano heritage, including an Aztec symbol(an eagle clutching a snake) and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Luna, a member of the Viejitos Car Club and lowrider for two decades, spent three years preparing “Midnight Illusions” for the show circuit--and this is one lowrider that isn’t slow. Under the hood is a big chromed engine from a 1959 Chevy Impala.

Julio Ruela’s classic zoot-suit-style ’39 Chevy, had to make a statement about its owner, said his brother, Fernando, who built the car. With 22-karat gold emblems lined with turquoise stones (Julio’s birthstone) and 50 coats of paint on the body of the car, the Chevy is smooth, a little over the top, but kind of old-fash-ioned--just like Julio, said Fernando.

‘Gypsy Rose,’ Fit for Bonnie and Clyde

Or take Bobby Valenzuela’s “Black Beauty,” singled out by Lowrider magazine as “best of the classics.” Valenzuela’s maroon-and-black 1938 Chevrolet Master Deluxe, with “gangster” whitewall tires, a tommy-gun replica and moneybags in the trunk, is also known on the street as the “Bonnie and Clyde car.” Well, Bonnie and Clyde a la Mexicana--Valenzuela loves to blast mariachi singer Vicente Fernandez as he cruises in his car around the South Bay.

Then there is Jesse Valadez’s 1964 Chevrolet Impala, which he christened “Gypsy Rose.” Although the original car was damaged in an accident, the new model is detailed with roses (more than 2,500 petals) with pink, red and white base coats buffed to a high gloss. The interior has crushed pink velvet upholstery, chandeliers, a small cocktail bar in the backseat and an eight-track tape player--a veritable lovemobile.

Although most of these guys live and breathe cars, many have never been to the museum. Located in the Mid-Wilshire area, the museum has not established a firm base of support in the heavily Latino working- and middle-class communities of the San Gabriel Valley or the outskirts of Los Angeles. The museum’s Fister said this show will not only expand its audience among old-time lowriders, but could also serve as a gathering point for young males, who aren’t typically avid museum-goers.

To the lowriders, a show chronicling the history of their cars in Los Angeles seems obvious.

“It’s about time! It’s overdue!” said Fernando Ruelas.

The cars are also a part of a family narrative that passes through generations. And for the most part, they are a distinctly Mexican American tale.

200 Pounds of Cement in Trunk

Mario de Alba fell in love with lowriders as a teenager in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, when he saw a 1951 two-door Chevy business coupe cruisin’ down a Tijuana boulevard. So when he turned 15, he traded his tricked-out lowrider bike and a transistor radio for a 1939 Pontiac--his first car.

“As soon as I could get my hands on a car, I knew I would make it a lowrider,” recalled De Alba, now 54. Like other youths who lacked big bucks, De Alba would find ingenious ways of lowering the car, like filling the trunk with 200 pounds of cement or lead.

“I couldn’t afford any hydraulics back then,” he recalled. “So I managed the way I could.”

When he moved to Los Angeles in 1965--before he got married--De Alba would cruise down Whittier Boulevard. De Alba remembers those warm sunny days and that cool-cat sensation of driving a cherried-out car with a pretty girl at his side, relaxing with some “oldies but goodies” playing on the radio.

When he married, he knew his family would be a part of his lowrider fascination. His eldest son, Mario Jr., would accompany him to antique shops to pick up accessories for the cars. As the family grew, the lowrider custom took hold among all of them.

“He used to take us cruisin’ on Sundays,” said Albert de Alba, 28, the second oldest. “He included the family in everything. When we reached the age of a bicycle, he would build us our lowrider bikes. We would fix our bikes, and by the time we reached 18, he bought us our cars for our birthdays. It went from there to a whole other level.”

The whole family--Mario Sr., his wife and their five sons--are regulars at the car shows. And the family owns a body shop in Montclair where the boys work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every weekday--no exceptions. From 5 to 7 p.m., the De Alba men work on their lowriders, and Saturdays are reserved for more lowrider work with the occasional car show.

“We like to be on a strict program,” said Albert de Alba. “We never pull anything half-done. We like to set examples for other lowriders. It’s a way of life. We eat and sleep lowriders.”

In 1980, De Alba Sr. bought a 1951 Chevrolet for $150. Originally, he was going to use it for spare parts, but a rush of memories flooded his mind when he recalled that ’51 Chevy in Tijuana.

Nearly $20,000 and countless hours later, his ’51 Chevy would become the “Bomb of the Year” in the 1991, ’93 and ’94 Lowrider magazine car shows. The apple-red Chevy with “frenched” (meaning inset) antennas and headlights and an extended hood, won so many awards that it had to be retired--nobody could beat it. The license plate reads: El Corazon (the Heart).

“I’m gonna do my best to clean my car and get it ready for the world,” De Alba said of his car, which will be featured in the Petersen show. “I put my heart into this and I want people to see that.”

BE THERE

“Arte y Estilo: The Lowriding Tradition,” Saturday through May 28 at the Petersen Automotive Museum, 6060 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 930-CARS. Museum hours: Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

*

More Cars on the Web

* For a photo gallery of cars in “The Lowriding Tradition,” go to Calendar Live: https://www.calendarlive.com