This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Bill Whitaker took a quick trip to Española, New Mexico, the self-proclaimed lowrider capital of the world.
Lowriders are exactly what they sound like: cars that ride low to the ground. But they are also famous for their brightly colored and eye-catching painting.
In telling the story, Whitaker met an artist named Rob Vanderslice, a rare “gringo” in the lowrider world who hailed from Mexican American communities in the Southwest and West Coast just after World War II.
Vanderslice made a name for himself with his elaborate, serpentine paint jobs that spanned the entire vehicle, which became known as the “steal job.”
“Everything I do is done with tape…you stick it, you spray it, you peel it off,” Vanderslice told Whitaker in an interview.
He said some designs require three or four months of careful planning, until the final layers and patterns are ready for painting.
Despite their origins, lowriders first entered mainstream consciousness during the heyday of gangster rap, when the cars were featured in music videos by Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and Dr. Dre, from the late from the 1980s.
“Cars played a big role in a lot of the videos. But it also associated them with gangs, and even drug trafficking,” Whitaker told 60 Minutes Overtime.
Vanderslice said many of his customers were gang members and wanted their own lowriders, emulating the biggest rap stars.
“If you were someone from the neighborhood and you saw all these luxury cars…what does it take to have one of these cars?” he told Whitaker.
“You’d do anything you could…to end up with one of these cars.”
Vanderslice became involved in gang culture and began using drugs as he rose in the lowrider world. He eventually became addicted to crystal meth.
But after three felony convictions, Vanderslice stopped using drugs. He is now celebrating 13 years of sobriety.
Vanderslice showed Whitaker his personal car which illustrates his journey, as he put it, “from darkness to light.”
Parked outside his workshop, Vanderslice’s 1996 Cadillac Fleetwood gleamed in the sun, metallic flakes shining throughout the paint job.
He said the car’s changing hues, from dark colors on one side to light colors on the other, represent his life experience.
“I have the oranges, the reds, [and] violets on one side. And then this whole side is all… blue, magenta, purple… basically describing my life change from darkness to light. My past, then my present.”
Vanderslice even added a unique feature: LED lights embedded in the paint that illuminate the bright spots in his life on the other side.
Through his reporting, Whitaker discovered that lowrider culture had made a similar transition toward positive change.
“The culture is changing… it’s moving away from its past and more about helping the community grow,” he said.
Communities like Española and other areas of northern New Mexico experience high rates of crime, drug use and poverty. And the lowrider community stepped in to help.
Vanderslice now uses his artistic talent to mentor young people in the community who may be struggling like he did in his youth.
He teaches them how to build and paint lowrider bikes, intended to attract attention – and ride low and slow – like their automobile counterparts.
“It keeps kids out of trouble. Anything we can do to steer people in the opposite direction from where we went, that’s what we’re trying to do now,” he said. declared to Whitaker.
“We come out of darkness into light.”
The video above was directed by Will Croxton. It was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.
