Growing up in Mexico, Marco Flores fantasized about the lowrider cars he saw in magazines and studied their colorful bodies and shiny engine compartments. He also loved his father's Chevrolet Chevelle. As a tribute, Mr. Flores eventually enlisted the help of his children to restore his father's muscle car, the Chevelle, to electric blue.
Now his custom creation, which he designed and built after work in his garage in Port Chester, New York, is featured in that same Lowrider magazine.
Mr. Flores, 55, who works six days a week at a Mamaroneck auto repair shop, said his blue Chevelle “represents my entire childhood and my passion for cars.” “When I turned it on, I felt like my dad knew I did this for him.”
The family is a pillar of the lowrider culture that thrived in car-crazy postwar Los Angeles among Mexican-Americans who took the used cars they could afford and transformed them into bouncy works of art. Just as Mr. Flores shared his skills with his children, many fans have added hydraulics to the trunk, bright paint throughout the body, and iconography such as the Virgin of Guadalupe to honor tradition and celebrate achievement. Embrace the scene in a family-friendly way. Hood.
The state of California recently repealed a ban on lowrider cruising and vehicle modification that had been in place for decades. These issues have not caused the same concerns in New York City, and as the city's Mexican population has grown, the visibility of lowriders has increased on the road and at car shows. Lowriders once considered gang-related now win awards and support local charity events.
Alfonso Gonzales Toribio, a Chicano professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside who owns Lowrider, traces this trend to the mid-20th century boom in unionized industrial jobs. This spread to enthusiasts recalling custom cars in Mexico.
“We added a cultural expression to the car by applying Mexican styling, lowering the height and using bright colors,” he added. “We change everything we do.”
Last August, dozens of lowriders, ranging from life-size contraptions to radio-controlled scale models, were on display in a cobbled parking lot in Astoria, Queens, overlooking the East River and Manhattan. The children walked with their parents and were amazed by the details and the many things the owners did to save money. Young men on silver- and gold-plated lowrider bikes lounged in chinos and T-shirts, while others chatted about cars from the past. At one point, the crowd watched a Mexican folk dance troupe perform in animal costumes.
No one in the New York area knew anything about lowriders when Mr. Flores left the troubled country of Mexico in 1998 to join his mother and sister in Port Chester. He knew he could do better and he convinced someone to do it by laughing at the cheap paint jobs he saw. Let me paint my truck a bold color. Soon word spread about his custom paint jobs and shiny hydraulics, and he hasn't stopped since. Now his cars compete and win at local car shows that once ignored lowriders.
The techniques he uses to build lowriders have also become noticeable in his workplace. Mr. Flores is skilled at manufacturing parts and now manufactures replacement body panels for high-end imported cars.
“We gained respect little by little,” he said.
The bikes and fashion that are part of the lowrider scene also draw on Coney Island-based musician Fidencio Cortez. He commissioned Mr. Flores to draw a lowrider bicycle, a metal-plated BMX-style machine that he rode with his friends.
“I didn’t really see this bike at first,” said Mr. Cortez, 33, referring to New York. “But we saw them on parade videos and on YouTube.”
Thanks to online popularity, the culture has become global, González Toribio said, pointing to lowrider clubs as far away as Japan. Instead of doing the work themselves like Mr. Flores did, fans can order all the parts they need to power up their cars online if money is no object. Nonetheless, traditionalists have mixed feelings.
“The problem with cultural commodification is that we lose control,” said González Toribio, adding, “Will the market take over the low riding?”
So Mr. Flores raised his three children to take care of cars, handing their father a flashlight and a wrench. It reminded him of the days when he would help his father, a bus driver, clean his Chevelle before boarding it.
His enthusiasm cooled. His one son, Marco Jr., customizes Japanese compact cars and his work has been displayed at the New York International Auto Show along with million-dollar vehicles. Mr. Flores' daughter, Sherry, will inherit his other car, a candy-apple-red Chevy Impala with gold trim and a spotless hydraulic pump in the trunk that makes the car dance and bounce.
“She calls it her baby.” Mr. Flores said. “But when I die, I want my ashes in a hydraulic tank. That way, when she drives, I’ll still be with her.”