From the Garage to the Drive-in: Preserving Lowrider Culture in Chicago

On Pilsen’s industrial edge, about 300 people from several car clubs pull up in their lowriders to the drive-in theater, ChiTown Movies. The vibrant paint on classic Chevys, Cadillacs and Lincolns brightens the dusty, dead-end street next to the Chicago River.

Some drivers activate their lowriders’ hydraulics, sending the classic cars bouncing up and down as they make an entrance. Meanwhile, friends, family, and members of the Amistad Car Club hand out goodie bags and greet guests for one of the last big Chicago lowrider meetups of the season: “Ranflas At the Drive-In.”

The event culminates with a screening of “My Family, Mi Familia,” the Gregory Nava-directed multi-generational drama about a family who migrated from Mexico to the U.S. “Ranflas At the Drive-In” is an idea Pedro Cisneros and the Amistad Car Club have been thinking about for some time now. During last year’s inaugural event, the club screened the 1979 drama “Boulevard Nights,” which prominently features the lowrider scene in East LA.

Cisneros, the founder of the Chicago chapter of the Amistad Car Club, always considers the larger lowrider community when planning events with his club.

When Cisneros initially came to Chicago from Southeast Texas in the ‘90s, he didn’t notice many lowriders in the area. But that has changed over the years. His club has grown to include members from California, Texas, Mexico and Chicago.

Cisneros helped build a club and created an outlet for those wanting to convert their classic cars into lowriders at his home garage. Over two decades later, Cisneros is embracing those interested in lowrider culture — most recently teaching Little Village youth how to build lowrider tricycles as part of a summer program.

For Cisneros, he helped foster a community that looks after one another.

“Anybody that you go to in the lowrider community is willing to lend a helping hand,” Cisneros said. [If] “you go to a picnic, you participate, even if you don’t have a car or you’re not part of the lowrider community. [If] you’re just going to check out the scene, you’ll see that everybody there is welcome.”

Borderless Magazine spoke with Cisneros about his history in lowrider culture, bringing the Amistad Car Club to Chicago, and giving back to the lowrider community.

It started when I was about nine or 10 years old. We had just moved next door to a family who had bikes and lowriders. Seeing a lowrider for the first time really freaked me out. For me, it was something out of this world. When they hit the hydraulic switch and the car lowered to the ground, it blew my mind. I was hooked ever since.

I started hanging out with my neighbors and became immersed in lowrider culture. They had a Schwinn lowrider bike. It was customized with a metallic flake paint job.

Our family wasn’t well off, so I wasn’t in a situation where I could ask for money to build a bike. So, I started with what I had, which was just an ordinary bike. I built the bike with the help of my neighbors. I used scrap parts from old bikes that were thrown away in the alleys and used them to build my first lowrider bike. They helped me with adjustments like lowering the bike to make it look like a lowrider. That’s how we started building bikes with what we had.

Amistad Car Club was founded in 1978 in Bishop, Texas. It started as a lowrider bike club and evolved into a car club. Members began building lowriders in the ‘80s. I became a member around the same time back in my hometown.

When I decided to move to Chicago, I received the club’s blessing to start a chapter in the city. But my intentions were never to start a car club in another city. I was just planning to remain a member and represent the Amistad Car Club in Chicago, even if it was just myself.

When I permanently moved to Chicago in ‘99, I hauled my lowrider on a flatbed trailer and parked it in front of my mother’s house in Cicero. I remember someone drove up and said: ‘Hey, man, I dig your lowrider. I got a lowrider myself.’

We introduced ourselves, and it turned out that he lived on the next block and was part of a car club. I started hanging out and going to car shows, picnics and car meetups with his club. I tagged along and represented Amistad with their club.

They introduced me to other car clubs and people in the community, and it grew from there.

In 2001, I decided an Amistad Car Club in Chicago made sense as I started meeting some people. The new friends I made in Chicago weren’t part of any club and wanted to build a lowrider. They wanted to be a part of something. These friends were the first members of the Chicago chapter. As a club, we put hydraulics in their cars. They had the classic cars already, so they just needed juice. We started the club with a fresh batch of members.

Over the last few years, the lowrider scene has grown. At one time, the growth was slow.  Back then, in the early 2000s, we were just cruising. There really weren’t too many lowrider events happening. There was a little drought. Now, there’s stuff happening every day of the week. I think the pandemic had something to do with the slowdown and the growth afterward. We were cooped up for a couple of years and people just wanted to show off their cars, cruise and hang out.

I think social media played a big part in the explosion of events. Before Instagram and Facebook, we spread the event information through flyers and postcards. We looked forward to those days.

Now, with social media, information gets around pretty quickly. Everybody wants to take their cars out. People spend time on their cars; they want to show them off. Any opportunity they have to do that, they jump on it.

Events like Ranflas at the Drive-In bring back memories of our childhood, especially those who went to the drive-in when we were kids.  It’s an awesome feeling to be able to drive in, see the big screen and be in your car. It’s a great vibe.

Max Herman is the visual editor at Borderless Magazine.  Send him an email at max@borderlessmag.org.