New Mexico celebrates hydraulics and heritage with lowrider car holiday

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This article was published 11/02/2025 (412 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — State lawmakers are embracing New Mexico’s time-honored culture of transforming customized lowrider cars into rolling canvases of artistic expression and a source of community pride.

House and Senate lawmakers designated Tuesday as Lowrider Day at the state Capitol, marked by celebrations of Latino tradition and history. Proposed legislation would go farther by creating specialty license plates in tribute to lowriders.

Legislators including state Sen. Leo Jaramillo also are drafting a bill this year that would enshrine the lowrider as New Mexico’s state vehicle — alongside the roadrunner as state bird and the spikey yucca state flower. Lawmakers also envision a future lowrider museum in the car-crazed city Española, 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Santa Fe.

Jaramillo says the Upper Rio Grande Valley emerged as the cradle of lowrider car culture in the 1960s as Vietnam War mechanics brought their skills to bear on customized cars. Decades later, an MTV crew documented New Mexico lowrider traditions and labeled the Española valley as the “lowrider capital of the world.”

Lowrider enthusiasts on Tuesday parked vehicles near a statehouse entrance, including a vintage Pontiac Grand Prix in sparkling-fuchsia paint and an eyepopping, orange Cadillac with golden wire-rim wheels.

“It’s more than just a moving piece of art. It’s also STEM in motion, the science of hydraulics, the mixing of paint,” said Jaramillo said. “When I speak to kids in Española about lowriding, I always remind them about the science behind it.”

Democratic state Rep. Cynthia Borrego said lowriders are intertwined with memories of growing up in small-town New Mexico and cruising in cars on weekends during the 1970s and ’80s. In recent years, New Mexico cities including Albuquerque have rolled back ordinances that restricted “cruising,” by labeling it as a nuisance. Today, Borrego said, entire families embrace lowrider traditions.

“People bring up their kids, knowing how to work on cars, how to show them,” she said. “It does sort of became a family thing.”

On the House floor on Tuesday, state Rep. Art De La Cruz of Albuquerque reminisced about his first car — a 1964 Chevrolet Impala and makeshift lowrider.

“We couldn’t afford these fancy hydraulics. … All we could do was put weights in the back of the car” to lower the suspension, he said. “I put cement sacks in there. It worked. It didn’t hop.”