A car shop in California USA is creating custom lowrider cars that defy gravity. With just a flick of a switch, 3,000 pounds of metal bounces up and down eight feet in the air. Alex Tuason, 25, builds these cars at his fathers shop, Hoppos Custom Suspension Works in Ontario, California. Alex removes the coil springs from the car and replaces them with hydraulic cylinders. The hydraulic system is switch operated and controlled with a remote or dial on the dashboard.
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MotorTranscript
00:00COMM'T With just the flick of a switch 3000 pounds
00:07of metal bounces up and down 8 feet in the air. 25 year old Alex Tuazon creates these
00:15custom lowrider cars that defy gravity at his father's shop. Popo's Custom Suspension
00:21works.
00:22ALEX ESSAHAUSKAS You specialize in aftermarket suspension
00:26particularly hydraulic and air suspension.
00:28The lowrider community emerged in the U.S. in the 1950s.
00:34We are actually a small, tight-knit group of family.
00:37Everyone knows everyone, whether you're from Canada, Alaska.
00:41I mean, there's guys that are lowriding everywhere,
00:43but overall, I mean, it does look like a bigger scene than it really is.
00:48The reason they got their name Lowriders is because
00:50they would actually be driving solo, scraping up their body,
00:53and then from there it eventually grew into the culture that we're in now,
00:57aftermarket hydraulic pumps, making the cars go up and down at a flick of a switch,
01:01so it evolved big time.
01:04Alex removes the coil springs from the car and replaces them with hydraulic cylinders.
01:09The hydraulic system is switch-operated
01:12and controlled with a remote or a dial on the dashboard.
01:17Building one of these cars costs customers anywhere between $2,000 to a few hundred thousand dollars
01:23and can take years to complete.
01:25I personally know some guys that probably have close to $200,000 to $300,000 into a car.
01:31It always starts off, you know, wheels, paint, upholstery, undercarriage, hydraulic setup,
01:37and then from there you start going into detailing everything you just bought.
01:41So you buy a stock set of rims and then, hey, this looks nice, but let me do something greater.
01:46You've even seen a couple guys that are currently building Impalas
01:50with, like, Ferrari motors and stuff like that, so it gets crazy.
01:53These heavily customized cars are clearly designed to stand out, and Alex welcomes the attention.
01:59Being West Coast, you'd think they would kind of be used to it,
02:03because West Coast is like, you know, car culture central right here.
02:06You know, it never gets old for people.
02:08They see it rolling down the streets and you'll still get a thumbs up every once in a while.
02:11It's pretty cool, you know, you get that reaction, especially when you put all that money into the car.
02:15Alex has been in the car business all his life,
02:18helping his father around the shop since he was a child.
02:21I've been doing this since I was in diapers, honestly.
02:24I grew up around it, in the shop, around the cars.
02:27Eventually, you grow into grab the tools and help this and help that.
02:32My dad's been a big influence in my life as far as the car scene,
02:36but full-time, full-time, I've been into it about seven, eight years now.
02:41And he plans to follow in his father's footsteps and run the shop in the future.
02:46My dad owns the company. Of course, he's shown me the right steps,
02:49what to do in order to get to the next level.
02:51And not only building a car, but in the business aspect, too.
02:54So eventually, he's going to hand down the business to me.
02:58When you build one of these, you build it for yourself.
03:02It's fun driving a lowrider, man.
03:04You can't, there's nothing really else I could describe it.
03:07You know, you got to get in one and see the reaction for yourself.