SEMA 2025: Lowriders

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Lowriders originated in Mexican communities in Southern California after the Second World War.

Following the Second World War as America went into its economic boom hot-rodding became very popular and a focus on speed became the go-to way of building a car. As a counter culture people in Mexican-American communities were building their cars to sit as low and look as cool as possible. ‘Low and Slow’ or ‘Bajito Y Suavecito’.

As well as being low these cars would feature small wire-spoked wheels, white wall tyres and paintjobs with beautiful pinstriping and airbrushed murals.

Originally people were simply static dropping their cars but in 1958 California made it illegal to drop the body of a car below the bottom of the cars rim, effectively banning lowriders overnight.

To combat this, in 1959 Ron Aguirre installed aircraft hydraulics onto a ’56 Corvette so he could raise and lower the suspension with the flick of a switch, bypassing the law.

As the early 1960s rolled around this style of modification exploded in popularity amongst Latin-American communities and also African-American communities. As time passed the hydraulic systems became more complex giving us the dancing cars and three wheeled cruising that’s synonymous with the scene today.

I would imagine a lot of Europeans my age had their first exposure to lowrider culture through the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which came out in 2004. For the younger members of my audience I’d say that San Andreas is still a very solid story and well worth playing today, but as I’m talking about lowriders, the game focuses very heavily on gang violence in the Black and Latino communities in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. It was a problem then, and is still a problem now, but the lowriding community isn’t a part of that and a lot of lowriding clubs are very active in working towards steering young people away from gangs and gang culture.

I think that’s also why I’m fascinated with lowriders is that as well as having these beautiful cars there’s also a really strong sense of community within that scene and it really reflects my beliefs in that cars can give people a healthy outlet.

Anyway, onto SEMA. This generation Impala is the darling of the lowriding scene.

I love these earlier 1950s cars with the spats covering the rear wheels. They very much suit this style of modification.

Two door 1980s Cadillac lowrider? Yes please!

Buick Regal. I know of these through drag racing but they seem pretty popular in the lowriding scene too.

A 1968 Impala built by Retro Manufacturing in conjunction with the Las Vegas Golden Knights ice hockey team.

Mister Cartoon built this 1963 International ice cream truck over a period stretching over 10 years. It’s incredible!

A little bonus of an RC lowrider on a matching COE lowloader truck. The kits for both models are by Redcat Racing and they were on the Venom Power Tires stand.

Saving my favourite until last, we have this beautiful 1938 Chevrolet hearse from Munoz & Sons autobody. The car made it into the Top 4 of the SEMA Battle of the Builders. My pictures really don’t do it justice, it was stunning!!