Low Rider Roses

Imagine my delight when I walked into the Peterson Automotive Museum in downtown LA and discovered 100 roses painted on the Gypsy Rose, the iconic 1964 Chevy Impala customized Low Rider. 

This car sparked the Low Rider movement when it cruised down Whittier Boulevard for the opening of the TV comedy Chico and the Man (1974-78).  The Peterson’s feature display “Best in Low– Icons of the Street & Show” dazzles in vibrant colors and modifications on more than 30 Low Rider vehicles, including cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and even baby pushcarts.

Inspired partly by the desire for a cool car, young Chicano men began reclaiming castaway cars such as the Chevy Impalas of the ’60s, and the lowrider movement grew. Artistry and creativity in lettering, drawing, painting, metal finishing, hydraulics, and refurbishing interiors created cars designed to command respect.  

Unleashed imaginations began an out-of-this-world craze. Today, the craftsmanship creating such personalized art is genuinely admired. 

Cruising became a pastime in Southern California, and with it, controversy and efforts to curtail its presence. Stereotypes of gang violence and racism led to laws banning car modifications on the height of the wheels and banning cruising on the streets. Hydraulics were added to raise the car from low to high to work around the law.  The current Peterson Exhibition coincides with the end of the cruising ban laws in California.

Today, Chicano culture embraces the Low Riders’ creative artistry and provides a leadership role that connects family customizers over four generations. Plaques hanging in the rear window identify the Car Club’s membership.

The importance of family, faith, and cultural heritage creates a bridge for kids to enter model Low Rider competitions. Youth are learning the science of airbrushing, design, hydraulics, engraving, metal fabrication, and having fun. Craftsmanship skills, requiring calculations, proportions, and through artistry, inspire budding talents. The display of baby pushcarts, three-wheelers, and bicycles shows the progression of creativity from small to larger projects.

Adoring Dads customize a vehicle for their daughters and, simultaneously, open the door for girls to be inspired to create. 

Airbrush art featuring intricate floral, vine, and leaf patterns embellishes the exteriors and interior upholstery. Drawing on the Aztec imagery, religious symbols combine beautifully painted sunset murals with palm trees, cacti, eagles, and other wildlife, linking the connections of nature in the cars.

Driving the streets of my town as cars in white, duct tape gray, and khaki tan roll by is not a head-spinning experience. This exhibit is an unforgettable encounter. Lowrider culture is now a phenomenon in Japan, India, Brazil, and Australia and many areas of the U.S.  It is a Southern California Chicano cultural jewel admired by the world. 

The Peterson Automotive Museum continued to amaze me. I found more flowers and fun in an exhibition by Mr Brainwash, aka the moniker of French-born, Los Angeles-based artist Thierry Guetta (b. 1966).  Mr Brainwash uses his irreverent and fine artistic skills to insert a car into recreations of famous paintings. 

My favorite is the bridge of Giverny.  

The Girl with the Pearl, adding oil to the engine, was a close second.

The Madonna with baby Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Fisher-Price plastic car is a unique perspective.

I’m not a big car show fan, but we are a culture of cars. E.B. White wrote in 1943, “Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.”  In this big country, it still rings true. Low Riders are beautiful cars.

Even without flowers, I can be tempted by a pretty car. The following describes me a few years ago.

Oh, Temptation Be Gone!

The hunger of my desire is
reflected back at me

I cautiously approach.
And then
shyly touch the sensuous curves.

I salivate in anticipation of connection
I inhale the alluring scent remembered from so long ago

I am so strongly attracted to the beauty before me
I feel temptation pull every part of my being

So much depends upon the choice I make at this moment
resisting the lust, I feel, and

continuing to drive the low-mileage car I already own.

More images below!