The lowrider is one of the few truly home-grown cultural exports of Los Angeles that has become an international phenomenon. One of the godfathers of this American tradition, Julio Ochoa Ruelas, died last month at the age of 62. Ruelas co-founded with his brother Fernando the oldest continual lowrider car club in the world, the Dukes So. Cal. The L.A. Times' Jocelyn Y. Stewart gives us an obituary:
The story of the brothers is intertwined with that of the lowrider, which begins with World War II, when factories that normally produced cars instead made tanks and other vehicles for the war effort, Messer said. During those years and shortly after the war, it was impossible to buy a new car. Many of the veterans who settled in Southern California after the war brought with them new skills, money and a desire for something uniquely theirs.
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Lowriders are "artistic creations that are also mechanical marvels." They ride low. They ride high. They "hop." They are canvases on which art is painted. The Ruelas brothers learned to love lowriders in a multiethnic neighborhood of South Los Angeles, where they were raised and worked.
Last year, the San Diego Automotive Museum presented an exhibit called "Bajito y Suavecito: Lowriders of Southern California," which featured cars, models and memorabilia from lowrider car clubs in San Diego, Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, and Tijuana. Women lowrider car clubs were featured as well. The Save Our Centro Coalition has some great photos from the opening reception last February. Union-Tribune publisher David Copley was there. One Saturday me and my brother took my dad to the exhibit, as he owns a '40 Buick and a '37 Chevy, and while we were in there our dad ran into a couple San Diego O.G.'s he hadn't seen in years. They stood among those beautiful shiny machines and reminisced. Stuff like that always happens to him.
* Still going strong, Lowrider magazine. Photo from here.