“Lowrider Lifestyle” docuseries highlights NM car culture

On May 28, Guild Cinema held a premier of the first season of “Lowrider Lifestyle,” hosted by Bryant Johnson and Candice Neu. The four part docuseries was centered around the 2024 Lowrider SuperShow hosted at The Albuquerque Convention Center. The SuperShow is an exhibition and competition, allowing members of car clubs to show off their vehicles. Prizes, including best of show, are awarded based on era of car and level of customization.

The SuperShow features lowrider cars — which are vintage, highly customized cars with specialized hydraulics allowing the car to ride low to the ground. Lowrider culture emerged in the 1940s in Chicano communities in the Southwest. Many of the first lowriders were servicemen returning from World War II who transferred their skills into working as mechanics at auto shops, according to the documentary. Part of reacclimating to civilian life was customizing their vehicles as a means of self-expression.

Lowriders’ specialized hydraulics allow them to ride low and smooth, but they also allow for the iconic up and down motion of lowriders, the documentary explains. One aspect of the SuperShow are “hops” or “hopping contests,” where lowriders compete to see which cars can get the highest in the air and the closest to vertical without getting stuck. The car must come back down, touch the ground and bounce back into the air again, hence the name “hopping.”

Some cars can get nearly 90 vertical inches. Maximizing height while minimizing damage to the car is a technical feat — it necessitates hoppers to understand stress points, physics and engineering.

The bodywork, or paint jobs, of the lowriders shown at the SuperShow are works of art themselves. “Lowrider Lifestyle” interviewed two artists who worked on one of the showcased cars, OG Abel and Robert Vanderslice. They explained the names and uses of various paints, such as “candy” paints, translucent paints applied over chrome or darker bases to create the vibrancy lowriders are known for, and metal flake or “flake” which creates a glittering effect.

Airbrushed murals are also common in lowrider bodywork. OG Abel highlighted one mural he created — a golden clock surrounded by cherubs. Other murals are memorials or personal iconography.

The most important aspect of lowrider culture, however, goes beyond just the cars; for many, being a lowrider means being a member of a family. Many younger members of the community initially become interested due to a parent, older sibling or cousin’s involvement with lowriders — it’s intergenerational. Even beyond blood, members of the lowrider community consider each other family.

“What lowrider culture means to me is family. More family-oriented. Everybody’s always willing to help one another. And the lowrider culture is real tight knitted. And with that being said, if somebody’s in distress, if somebody’s going through a hard time, then everybody comes together and chips in,” the SuperShow organizer, Joe Romero said.

Neu and Johnson both attended the premier and were excited to see the community’s support for the project, and hope to continue making documentaries about the lowrider community, potentially following certain cars through the competition circuit. They hope that this and future projects will help destigmatize and highlight the beauty of lowriders.

“I think that lowrider culture really depicts what I’ve always believed is New Mexico culture. Something that sets New Mexicans apart is we’re loyal, you know,” Neu said. “We’re kind of like, ride or die, and, you know, we’re family, whether we’re blood or not. And I think that that’s what I see in the lowrider culture.”

She says she sees similarities between the culture in the lowrider community and the New Mexican film community, especially when comparing New Mexico film to other filmmaking scenes like Hollywood or Atlanta.

“I work in the movies, right? This is what I do. This is my day in, day out. And so for me, it’s like we’re dealing with so many people that are in a very different world,” Nue said. “And it’s really refreshing to be from New Mexico, because even within our New Mexico film community, it’s a different culture than it is in Hollywood.”