Lowrider Space: Aesthetics and Politics of Mexican American Custom Cars

Introduction

Introduction “Come on, Ben, you can ride with me.” Taking Eddie up on the invitation, I followed him through the crowded, sprawling parking lot. It was around midnight on a summer weekend in Austin, Texas, and the lot we stood in, off East Riverside Drive, was packed with cars and people. The police were mysteriously absent from Riverside, emboldening the owners of custom cars to gather in the lot outside a closed bingo parlor to cruise around and show off their rides. A couple hundred people stood around watching gleaming vehicles creep between rows of parked cars and knots of conversation. Chrome and custom paint shone under streetlights while stereos throbbed with bass-heavy Texas hip-hop. Every now and then a thump and clank resounded as a car lifted by hydraulics bounced its front end in the air and fell to the pavement again. Across the parking lot, near a nightclub blaring electronic cumbias for a different crowd, an engine roar was followed by the squeal of tires as someone burned out. I glanced over to see a clean but apparently uncustomized truck lurching forward as smoke rose from its wheel. Standing beside me, Arturo shook his head disapprovingly. “See?” he said. “Once they hear that, then the cops come and we gotta go.” Though there was no sign of the cops so far, Eddie was heading out, having decided he fancied a cruise around downtown. I climbed into his car, a 1970s 2 lowrider space Monte Carlo in which he had installed a powerful hydraulic system. Eddie had also cut the roof off with a torch. I climbed into the shortened, swivel-mounted seat on the passenger side and was surrounded with blue velvet upholstery on the dashboard and door. After starting the engine, Eddie touched a switch to lift the hydraulics a bit, then dropped the car, and the suspension springs bounced three or four times. I steadied myself with an arm on top of the open window. As we drove west on Riverside toward downtown, we saw why the police were leaving the lowriders alone. A multiple-car accident on the interstate highway that divides Austin west from east had drawn a line of patrol cars on the side of the road near the wreck. Yet this was a temporary distraction: it would be only a matter of time before they headed back in the direction of the bingo parking lot. Leaving this scene behind, we cruised toward Congress Avenue. As we turned north to cross the bridge, the cityscape of downtown unfolded dramatically before us. The summer night sky was glorious overhead, and in the wide-open car, it felt as if you could take in the whole panorama at once. Moving into downtown, we were quickly surrounded by the full drama of “going out,” as crowds flocked to the Sixth Street bar district. When we stopped at a light, it looked as though a couple of Anglo male college students who had apparently already enjoyed a fair amount of nightlife were swaying threateningly toward one another on the sidewalk while female companions made showy efforts to restrain them: “It’s not worth it, Drew!” A friend of one of the impaired combatants looked at us as if making an aside from the stage, and said, “This isn’t good.” The light changed, and we left this entertainment behind, turning back toward the Eastside and enjoying appreciative looks from pedestrians as we took in the view of the city and weekend excitement from the chopped Monte Carlo.« » A lowrider is an automobile customized in a popular aesthetic style (Kirschenblatt -Gimblett 1995), which is practiced mostly but not exclusively by Mexican Americans in the U.S. Southwest.1 A lowrider is also a person who participates in that style of customization by modifying his or her car with such adornments as custom wheels—wire spokes are usually considered “traditional” (see Figure i.1)—an accessorized interior, a high-wattage stereo system, and elaborate and sometimes figurative paint jobs on the car body. Various kinds of mechanical customizations are another feature of lowrider aesthetics. The quintessential introduction 3 mechanical modification is a hydraulic suspension, powered by a rack of batteries in the trunk and controlled from the driver’s seat with switches, that allows the wheels to bounce or “hop” vertically off the ground. Beyond customizing cars, lowriding is a social practice...