Low and Slow and Built for Show

Lowriders are full of surprises. Outfitted with smaller-than-factory wheels and fancy hydraulic systems, these highly customized cars may glide over the pavement only suddenly to rear up like a horse. A new set of five stamps celebrates lowrider culture, which is rooted in the 1940s-era working-class Mexican American/Chicano communities of the American Southwest.

Often described as low and slow, the lowrider is built for show and not for speed. At its most spectacular, the car boasts a dazzling paint job and a luxurious interior featuring, for example, crushed velvet upholstery. The tricked-out hydraulics allow the owner, at the touch of a button, to raise and lower the chassis or run the vehicle through tricks such as driving on three wheels or “hopping” (bouncing).

Traditionally, car club members have showed off their rides by “cruising” en masse along a chosen route, generally a commercial corridor in their neighborhood.

Many a lowrider started out as an older American model — more prestigious than newer styles — and perhaps even as an inoperable junker, before being transformed into a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. The lowrider do-it-yourself ethic, with expenses spread out over years, parts retrieved from scrap yards, and reliance on help from skilled friends, makes it all possible.

When planning the stamps, USPS art director Antonio Alcalá was eager to show different lowrider styles, vintages, and colors. He found that photography would best capture the essence of lowrider culture. “Photography helps honor the hard work that goes into the creation of each car,” he explains. By contrast, “Using illustrations would possibly be more about the artist’s imagination than about actual lowriders.”

The stamps feature photographs by Philip Gordon of Let the Good Times Roll/Soy Como Soy, a blue 1946 Chevrolet Fleetline; and Pocket Change, a green 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme; and photographs by Humberto “Beto” Mendoza of Eight Figures, a blue 1958 Chevrolet Impala; El Rey, a red 1963 Chevrolet Impala; and The Golden Rose, an orange 1964 Chevrolet Impala.

To show the cars in as much detail as possible, Alcalá made the stamps one-third wider than the usual commemorative size. Other design elements pay further tribute to lowrider culture. Danny Alvarado’s custom pinstriping in the corner of each stamp and on the selvage evokes the detailed decoration found on the most celebrated lowriders. The Gothic-style typography suggests the shiny chrome lettering found on many cars to indicate their affiliation with a particular club.

“Lowrider cars represent a great deal of pride on the parts of the owners, the painters, and detailers, and the car clubs,” Alcalá says, acknowledging the responsibility he felt to do justice to a culture that came into its own in the 1970s — and is still going strong.