Riding Low with Deadend Magazine
While we were onsite at the Goodguys 36th All American Get-Together last week we couldn’t help gettin’ low with the Deadend Magazine Lowrider exhibit. Deadend founders Juan and Jose Espinosa put out the call for 25 lowriders for the exhibit and just like that – cars cruised into the Pleasanton Fairgrounds.
The Espinosa’s grew up in Salinas, California and have been immersed in lowrider culture since childhood. It’s what they do. Their magazine, website and social pages exist to share that culture with the world. And we mean the world around – hence their tagline “Deadend Worldwide.” This was the third time they have collaborated with Goodguys on the special exhibit. It keeps getting better and better!
The star of the show was Chuca Pullen’s ’64 Buick Riviera. The pearl blue candies, flake, lace and multiple layers of painted panels had to be seen to be believed. This car had our tongues wagging with the paint, the stance, the wires and white striped tires, the chain steering wheel – it was amazing.
Also on hand were the lowriders of Rick Madrid (’48 Chevy), Jose Guzman (’48 Chevy P/U), Bobby & Gina Ruiz’s ’54 Chevy, Glen Munoz’s ’74 Caprice (with some insane engraving on the trim and side view mirrors), Jeff Cecilio’s super fly ’60 Buick convert, and perhaps the most unusual lowrider we have ever seen – the ’37 Hudson Terraplane of Dublin’s Jose Gomez.
With an exhibit like this you see things. You see Latino pride, families, brothers, and generations of lowriders from old school veterans to those relatively new to the scene. More than any other sector of the old car hobby, the lowrider community is family. La Familia as it is. But with a show of this magnitude (there were tens of thousands of folks in attendance during the entire show) – we saw all nationalities represented in the lowrider building – all just there to enjoy the art of these cool cars.
And in the middle of it all was the Espinosa’s and their Deadend crew. They have a rockstar following and celebrity status wherever they roll and they roll everywhere! Shortly after Pleasanton they were on their way to Austin, Texas to the Lonestar Roundup.
