The Scoop on Lowriders

Nowadays most people are familiar with lowriders -- after all, these modified, often flashy vehicles are designed to attract attention. But where did they come from, and what exactly makes a lowrider ...well, a lowrider? Tune in to find out.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello everybody,
welcome to the podcast. My name is Ben Bully, and
today we're going to talk about war, but maybe not

(00:21):
in the way you think, right war. Tell me if
you remember this Scott all my friends drive a low rider.
A low rider. It's a little bit lower. Very nice,
the hit song by band called War very good. I
wonder where you're going with this war angle on this thing.
But yeah, of course everybody knows that song, right, Yeah, yeah,

(00:42):
every tintin tintinint Yeah, sing a little bit, man, I've
done my piece, shooting, I've done my bit. I was
hoping to get you to maybe seen the first verse.
Oh gosh, no, I embarrassed both of us. Um, but uh,
we were going to talk about low riders today, Yeah, bahito, Yes,

(01:04):
how's that? Low and sexy? Is that right? And slow?
Low and slow? Wait, let's do it. Can be sexy
if you want. I'm just no, that's fine. Whatever. Well,
but the the thing about low riders, then, if you'll
you'll pardon my um embarrassing mistranslation there. The thing about

(01:27):
low riders is that, unlike a lot of other heavily
modified cars. They're not modified for high performance on the road. Yes,
that's a That's a key point in these things is that,
you know, modifications. A lot of times you'll find people
do modifications for speed, superchargers exactly. They by the engine,
they change to transmission, the gearing. They do something to

(01:50):
make the you know, the cards just a little bit faster,
whether it's aerodynamic advantage, whether it's you know again, transmission
change around the compression. Everything they can change for speed.
But some people have taken it a different direction and
they they have made it kind of like it's more
of a show car. It's more about it's actually all
about style in this case. Yeah, it's not style over

(02:12):
substance so much as style is the substance. Yeah, it's
it's a and I'm gonna say it's more of a
lifestyle than than just style the car because the people
that are involved with low riders, this is really their lifestyle.
They're also called low riders themselves. And uh, if if
we can do the history real quick, because the history
is fascinating, Yeah it really is. Yeah, go ahead, Okay,

(02:34):
So this style, the low rider style, both the car
and the lifestyle emerge from Chicano culture in California around
the nineteen thirties, which is older than a lot of
people would think. That's unbelievable. Yeah, and uh, at this time,
these people are buying and customizing older cars. And there

(02:54):
you know, there's still hot rod culture and in this
time in US history, and so these people aren't customizing
cars to emulate hot rod style. What they're trying to do,
literally is get a car that looks really good and
memorable and is super comfortable when they're cruising up and
down the strip. Uh, you know, looking for the perfect

(03:17):
Saturday night. So and these guys, um, yes, let's just
come right out and stand, these guys are cruising for chicks.
These are cars to pick up chicks. Yeah, that's right.
These are cars to pick up chicks. That's what it's
all about. This is this is where it started in
the thirties. Can you believe it? I can't. I mean,
you were trying to be so smooth about that, trying
to get around that, right. I was always trying to

(03:38):
uh do refer to it and aroundabout way right. Okay,
So this is for the gentleman trying to pick up
the ladies on the road because they're they're trying to
make their car stand out, trying to be very stylish
and yet comfortable. So I wasn't that I wasn't that
off with my mistranslation. They are uh supposed to be
baijito sua vito. However, that's slow and slow, but they
are also supposed to have sex appeal. Sure, low and sexy.

(04:01):
As you say, I'm never go down, that's fine, whatever.
It just it just shocked me just for a moment. Okay,
So basically a low rider, Yeah, what is it? Okay,
low rider is well, we mentioned this already, but it's
a it's all about style. Um, primarily you're looking at
cars that um well, let's just get the obvious out

(04:22):
of here. They ride low to the ground. Yes, very
low to the ground. That's that's typical. But there's kind
of a new movement in this that that happened not
so long ago really if you think about it. But um,
for the most part, the early early cars were scraping
the ground super low. That's why they call them low riders,
of course, but they didn't have these trick suspensions like
they have now. Really, it was all about just getting

(04:44):
the car right down on the ground. And there were
some cars that were good for that, some cars that
were bad for that. And now we should mention Chevrolet. Yeah,
I think so, because Chevrolet they they This is what's
strange about this is that in the thirties when this
all began, Uh, the Chevrolet cars had a flat more
of a flat front end and back end than did
the Fords of the day. And I think the Chevrolets,

(05:07):
I think we're also a bit cheaper to buy used.
But one thing about the Fords of you know, the
early third well, the thirties and forties, they had a
bump on on the on the front of the bumper
that made it difficult for them to actually get it
as low as they wanted to. Uh, there's kind of
a bulge in the chrome bumper part um, which didn't
allow them to get it right on the ground like
they like to do. And um, you know, in order

(05:29):
to to work around that, they would have to replace
the bumpers with something else, and you know, for some
of them that just wasn't in the budget really. Um,
So they went back to the Chevrolet and decided that
this is the car that was the one to modify
this the one to drop right down to the ground.
And um, you know later Ford's had a different design
that we're you know a little bit more useful for
for low riding, I guess, or for this modification. But um,

(05:51):
that was what it was all about. It was about
getting the car right down on the ground. Recently, Um,
if you want to get up to current and you know,
we can still go back at you, but um, you
know they're there. It's more about like the dancing cars
and the suspensions and the hydraulics and the air air
ride shocks, and um, it's just it's about making the

(06:13):
car do some unbelievable things really. Um. You know some
of them are designed with air suspensions, which are the
kind that you know, you see them cruising down the
road and they might be on three wheels. You've seen this,
so that let's say the left front wheel is up
in the air. They're going really slow, but the right
back corn of the car is practically scraping the ground
if it's not actually scraping the ground. Um, it's all adjustable,

(06:36):
of course, you know, these air shocks are adjustable with
the compressor. Um. But it's generally those are generally driven
and the cars are are manipulated, well the person is
driving them, or it's a carload of people and it's
being manipulated. It's rising up and down and left and right.
There's another type that is is more so used in competition, right,

(06:58):
and this is hydra Yeah, this is the one that
everybody says, that's a hydraulic suspension. Well, hydraulic suspension is
the ones that people make dance. It's the one that
pops up and down, the one that they make. Do
you know it looks like it's gonna flip over backwards.
It's yeah, they raised the whole vehicle up to the
height of a monster truck and then they and so

(07:19):
it goes way up in the air. It looks like
it's on just little spin ley pieces of metal, but
it's really the suspension um and then they just start
hopping the front end. They're not in the vehicle at
the time, but they do start bouncing with an actuator
that's a remote control. It's a handheld control that they're
outside of the vehicle, and they make the car dance,
make it hop up and down. They can make the
entire thing jump off the ground, which is really dramatic

(07:41):
to see. Um, the crowd goes nuts and you can
you can check out videos of these. There are competitions
for this. Yeah, it's worth your time on YouTube. I
think it is. Yeah, it's pretty interesting to see. I mean,
I'll be honest, after a while, I get a little
tired of it. I mean, it's it's interesting, but there's
only still high a car can bounce. And you can
see that, you know, because it does go to the
maximum because their rear bumper will hit the ground right

(08:03):
and what's what. Another thing that's very interesting about this
is make no mistake. There are probably a few listeners
here unfamiliar with low riders saying, Gosh, Scott and Ben,
that sounds like it's terrible for a car's suspension. That's
not all about that, that's that, that's not what it's
about at all, because in fact, some of the cars
that I saw jumping, some that were you know that

(08:23):
we're actually leaping off the ground all four wheels at
one time. Um, it had you could tell in from
the video it was a green car that I saw
in this video. Um, I couldn't understand a word that
they were speaking in this video. It wasn't it wasn't
English and um, as they were announcing it, and you
could tell that, you know, parts of the car, we're
starting to break free. Yes, um it's very very difficult,

(08:44):
even even though it's built for this, but it's still
very punishing on the vehicle. And you can tell that
this particular car had rolled over at least once the
top was caved in. There was no glass in the
front and uh and you know it probably didn't have
any glass to begin with because of the jarring. But um,
I know that some of the like the a panel
where it connects to the roof had just given away. Um,

(09:05):
so it was it was definitely very damaging to the car. Now,
this is something that is of course expected with low
riders because of the nature of that sort of system,
that sort of system. Yeah, but a lot of them,
like the ones that cruise the streets, those are pure
show car. Those are some of those are I'll say
they're they're they're gaudy, but they're beautiful. Oh yeah, man.

(09:27):
And you you can see pictures of the interiors to
the interiors oftentimes are just as heavily modified, if not more.
Oh yeah, then the suspension, Yeah, I've seen some of those.
I feel like, wow, that's looks so much better than
my house. It's like it's like quilted vlure or something.
So vil bucket seats, leivel bucket seats and and that vlure,

(09:48):
you know, whatever color they used to match the entire thing.
It's it's remarkable. Some of them are just really really
over the top, um, you know, with the softness inside
and then on the outside. UM. I guess the biggest
um elements of design that they use for these things
are pin striping. They use a lot of pins striping. Um. Uh,

(10:08):
it's often metal flake paints, like you remember the the
old doom buggies, Yeah, back in the seventies sixties. Um,
a lot of them still use metal flake in the paints,
which is pretty dramatic. I guess that a lot of
them are chopped so they have a real low roof
line like a hot rod would have. Yeah, chopping chopping
in cars where you take off the top and you
adjust the rake of the windshield. Yeah that's right you yeah, exactly,

(10:32):
you're just the rake of the windshield and it's lower,
so like it has a lower profile. Um, that's a
cool look. I think like, yeah, that's a that's a
cool look. Now I should say, as we're going into
this that I couldn't really see myself owning a low rider,
especially in Atlanta because ours the condition of our roads
is so often hilarious. Um, but the the appeal is

(10:53):
definitely there. But would that help you because a lot
of hot riders I didn't You may not know this,
I I don't know. But um, let's say that you've
got an old Mercury, the lead slede, great big Mercury,
and you're going to the cruise night at the local
and W restaurant or whatever. I don't even if those
are still around. Uh, You're going to a cruise night
at a drive in Okay, and you know, as you

(11:15):
enter from the street, you're fine on the street, you know,
with the car being nice and low to the ground.
Let's say it's like an inch off the ground, okay,
But you're entering the parking lot and it's got an
immediate rise to the to the parking lot, it goes
up a small ramp to get in. There's no way
that car is gonna make it in. So I've seen
a lot of hot rods where they're turning let's say
left her right into a parking lot. They have to stop,

(11:37):
adjust the air suspension, raise it up to you know,
three or four inches or whatever it's acceptable, uh, to
get over that bump and then drive in and then
park again, lower the car and then you know, cruise
on it. No, that's like the most common type of
suspension for low rider, the air suspension. Yes, it is,
and the and and it makes sense because if you're
taking a vehicle that you have spent thousands of dollars on,

(12:01):
and we'll we'll get into some of the money that
that that is around here in this in this sort
of um lifestyle. But once you've spent that amount of
money and you want to take it to a show,
you don't wanna have all your hard work dashed because
of bumping the road speed bump in the parking lot, right,
except precisely, And so what you what you will find

(12:24):
is incredibly useful is to have an air suspension system
that can raise you up and then lower you back
down so you still got the same suite ride for
the show exactly. And uh, like you mentioned, you know
that the air bag also the airbag suspension also gives
you a softer ride so that you know you're not
Um that's not as damage into your body, I guess
as he drive around town in it, because it's just

(12:45):
a little bit easier to use. But I've seen some
of these cars tling around town on three wheels. It's
kind of neat to see. I mean, definitely slow. They
always go slow. Yeah. Um, it's not about speed. This
isn't a speed sport or it isn't for you know,
who can go the fastest from this light to the
next light. Um, it's completely all about style. And it it
looks like they're having a lot of fun too, because
you know, one thing that has always mentioned is that

(13:07):
it's a real social scene. The low writing scene is
very very social and uh, you know, it's all about
showing the car and you know, standing next to the
car and talking about the car and having a car
load of people. Um, it's it's not really an individual
support right yet. And of course there are uh publications

(13:27):
that can quickly familiarize you with some of the greatest
hits of the low riding, both the vehicles and the
social events. Low Rider magazine of course is a huge one,
so is a street low magazine. Um, now we we
should say I've encountered sometimes people who consider themselves car
enthusiasts but sort of dismiss this kind of car show

(13:52):
or like the same way they would dismiss like an
art car show or something. So it's just not my thing.
But my idea is that if you like good engineering
and if you like well done customization, this go to
at least one of these shows before you write these
guys off, because they're doing some amazing work. Yeah, like
I mentioned, they're they're a bit on the gaudeast side,

(14:13):
some of them, just because they try to go over
the top with with everything that they do. It's it's
it's intentional and uh yeah, like you said, Ben, you
got to give it a try and give it a shot.
If you've never really examined a low rider car because
I don't know, it's just not your thing, take a
good hard look at it, because you're right, it'll be
surprising just how much goes into one of those cars
and the the amount of engineering that's it's involved with

(14:36):
getting a car to do what it does. Yeah, like
just got you know they use have to use extra
car batteries to power the actuators on some of these things. Yeah,
and it's the I mean the layout of some of
those actuators too. Have you ever seen that, Like they
open up the trunk and you see that, you know,
all the hydraulic pumps that are involved. It's like a
plumber's nightmare in the back, you know, the back end

(14:57):
of the car. But it's also very very interesting to
look yet. I mean if if you've never had anybody
show you the actual system that operates something like this,
you know, ask a driver that they'll be happy to
show you this because that's what they do. That's there,
that's what they have built this vehicle for. It's just
to kind of show it off. They don't want to
keep it all themselves. They want to tell people about it.
It's just like any other car group. And that there's

(15:18):
amount of pride that goes along with it, and um,
an intense amount of pride really and an intense amount
of work. Yeah. So you know, maybe you do approach
somebody who's you know, driving a low rider and ask him,
you know, can I can I take a look at
this thing? Yeah? And uh, in my experience, and uh,
maybe I'm just a amicable guy, but in my experience, uh,

(15:39):
nine times out of ten. If someone has really interesting
vehicle and as well maintained and you just politely asked them, uh,
they would usually love to tell you about it because
they've spent so much time working on it. Yeah, exactly.
It's it's again source of pride and they love to
tell anybody and everybody about it. I gotta we gotta
talk though, we gotta talk Turkey. So Scott, there is

(16:03):
a little bit of bad news about low riders, really, yeah,
and it is all financially related. Is it that they
can't carry heavy loads in the trunk? That's a bonus
bad point. Um, Yeah, they can't. They can't carry heavy loads.
So when you try to sell a low rider that
you've you've worked on, um, unless you find someone who

(16:28):
specifically collects these things and once your vehicle, um, your
not going to have a very good chance of getting
the money you put into it back out. As a
matter of fact, for a lot of people, the hobby
is found in the building of the vehicle and it's

(16:48):
not a financial calculation, which is good because if you're
trying to make your fortune off of low riders, off
of buying and selling them, you're not gonna do very
well unless you do everything yourself and us you're a
custom house building cars for somebody else and they're paying
you to do that by the hour because you're exactly right.
But that's, you know, such is the sport of auto collecting.

(17:10):
I guess if you want to call it that um
restoration costs far more than just buying a car that's done. Yeah,
and if you also consider that if you are, god forbid,
involved in an accident, uh, most car insurance companies that
ensure your vehicle are not going to take into account
it's collectible status. They're going to ensure your let's say,

(17:32):
they'll ensure your seventies or eighties Monte Carlo as of
seventies or eighties Monte Carlo. Yeah, it's not gonna be
at seventies or eighties Monte Carlo worth a hundred and
ten thousand dollars quick shout out to my car. Monty
Carlos are pretty popular in the low rider community. Yes
they are. Yeah, yeah, they definitely are. There's a there's
a whole list of them. In fact, if you want
to you know what, that's something else. We've got another

(17:53):
article that's besides, you know, just how low riders work.
We've also got an article called ten Great low Riders,
and it's it's not just ten specific vehicles, it's about
ten types of vehicles that make good little writers. And why, um,
this is an interesting one, I thought, because when you
get to number one, you're gonna be surprised. Should I
even did I even tell them what's number one? Or

(18:14):
just make them go to the site, because I tell you,
it's it's shocking, it's um should should I say? You
have to say? All right, wait, wait, wait, first first though,
real quick, I'll do running. I won't even describe them,
I'll just list them. Yeah, okay, So we've got the
number ten. We've got the nineteen thirty nine Chevy that
we were talking about originally number nine. We've got the

(18:35):
number eight. We've got the nineteen fifty Mercury eight uh seven.
Of course, we've got a Chevy and popular number six
sixty five Buick Rivieria love that one. The boat tail
in makes sense to beautiful, um, nineteen fifties Chevrolet truck.
Who doesn't like an old pickup truck? Who doesn't? Um?
And then a Lincoln Continental awesome stately choice and the

(18:57):
one too the Buick Regal nineteen eight four. Yeah. Yeah,
oh that's an awesome friend on that one, and I
love that. And then uh, number two, of course, he
go Chevy Monte Carlo, Carlo, I need you to bring
it back somehow. Yeah. Number one A shocker, right, drum
roll please, A two thousand seven Toyota camera. What Yeah, Now, okay,

(19:19):
this has added here kind of a little I don't
know if it's tongue in cheek or what. But honestly,
and this is a growing trend in low riding low
riding community. It seems set to continue it I think
it is. And this is strange because you know the car,
the list of cars that you just read, you know,
one of these things is not like the other, right
and um tweet thousand seven Toyota camera. It's it's really

(19:41):
a shock. But if you look at the well, the
picture in the article doesn't have this image that I've
got right here in front of me, because I I
went ahead and looked it up. But Toyota had a
low rider built by Lowrider Magazine for their fiftieth anniversary
in the United States, and they thought, well, we're gonna
to uh, We're gonna make an a low rider Toyota
Camera Edition. Um, it's not anything that they're going to

(20:03):
produce mass of course. No, it's commemorative. This is just
a commemorative car that that Toyota had Lowrider Magazine build.
Of course it has its full lower suspension. But it's
what's weird is that, you know, it's got all the
stuff that a low rider would have. It has, you know,
custom seats and the custom dash, it has, you know,
the really the shiny chrome wheels and um two tone

(20:25):
paint job. The top is completely open on it. It's
it's completely different than any Toyota camera you'd see on
the road ever. But it is a growing trend. They're
saying of Japanese import cars being used for low riding purposes.
And I found this completely strange because this goes kind
of against what the history of the the I don't know,

(20:47):
the the lifestyle of of low riding has been about
all along. Yeah, we're gonna see it's I I predict
there over the next few years we're going to see, um,
some evolution in the low rider uh prized car category.
You know. No, the greats are never gonna leave. No,
I don't think so. I mean you're still gonna see cattle,
actually still gonna see Monty Carlos. You're can see in

(21:08):
palas and you know, the buicks and cutlasses, and there's
gonna be a lot of different historic cars. But you know,
you gotta remember that, you know that that population is dwindling. Uh.
The the population of and I mean the population of
of older vehicles gets smaller and smaller every day. Um.
You know, the people are are big into keeping these
things around and restoring them and doing you know, doing

(21:31):
due diligence. I guess to keep them on the road. Um.
Others buy them from junkyards and take the you know,
the pieces and and create something out of them, make
make a low rider out of them. Um, you know,
besides taking one that's been restored and making a low rider.
Some people would object to that. But there's also people
now that it's saying like, well, what's available now? Because
you know, it's not unheard of to have a relatively

(21:53):
new Chevy Caprice as a low rider, or you know
some of the the newer like let's say Crown Victoria
as a low rider. Um, what's such a big I
guess is there such a big step in going from
that to a camera, right, and a lot of traditionalists
predictably would have a problem with, as you said, uh,

(22:14):
customizing an older vehicle into a low rider in the
first place. But then a lot of low rider traditionalists
may have a problem with taking these newer vehicles. They're
taking just because it's an import it's not a piece
of American iron, right, And and to that I would say,
you know, I totally see that viewpoint. I understand it
also that we have to consider this started. One of
the reasons that Chevy was chosen was not just because

(22:37):
of its body shape, but also because of its affordability.
And this is um low riding. Low rider culture is,
regardless of how some people may deride it, low writing
culture is part of American history. I think if anything
goes back to the thirties and the country as young
as this, it's uh, it's part of American history, and
it seems set to become part of him at the

(22:59):
American future. Very nice, those were okay, words, Yeah, that
was good. You know what I I um, I gotta
say that I don't I don't think I really I
don't just like the the new trend here. I like
the older bigger cars. I like the I just like
the look of the old classic low riders versus I'm
trying to imagine some of the Japanese import cars or

(23:20):
Chinese import cars. And someday, who knows, um, imagine having
a Tata Nano as a as a low rider someday,
like you know, fifty years in the future. Is that
gonna what's that gonna look like? I knew you, I
did you really well. As I was thinking of the example,
i'bout an original mini lowrider weird a British carder. Yeah,

(23:42):
I would. I would want to see how that would work.
You know, No, I don't not me. You don't want
to stick the old American classics? Yeah, I definitely. Right now,
from the photos I've seen, the data I've seen, I
definitely prefer the older cars. Um. But who knows, man,
fifty years from now, people might be saying, well, these

(24:03):
new electric hover car lowriders are nothing to that classic camera. Yeah,
I guess there's always a chance of that, right, There's
always a chance they could carry us out. But we
hope that we've given you a pretty good look at
low rider cars. We haven't gone too far into low
rider culture, nor in the specifics of this. But these

(24:23):
are basically how they work and why they are made
the way they are a little bit of history. I
think we did all right, we did we? We think
we did. Okay, Um right into us and let us
know if you have a low rider's story, and especially
send us pictures of an awesome low rider car if
you got one. If you have one, if you rider,

(24:45):
send us a paragraph or two about it and it
tells how it works. Are you know I need that
interesting features it scots maybe some maybe maybe some photos
of it that'd be really cool, or even a video
of it in action that would be awesome. Yeah, that
would be That would be extra credit right there. Now.
As you know, Scott and I work for the Internet,
which means you can find us on Facebook and Twitter.
You can read more about our ten great low rider

(25:07):
cars and how low riders work on our website. And
if you've got that paragraph too, maybe even a video,
you can send us an email directly at car stuff
at how stuff work dot com. Be sure to check
out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, The How Stuff Works iPhone

(25:31):
app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, m