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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00:00 COMM: With just a flick of a switch, 3,000
00:07 pounds of metal bounces up and down, 8 feet in the air. 25-year-old Alex Tuason creates
00:14 these custom lowrider cars that defy gravity at his father's shop, Popo's Custom Suspension
00:21 Works.
00:22 ALEX TUASON We specialise in aftermarket suspension,
00:26 particularly hydraulic and air suspension.
00:28 COMM: The lowrider community emerged in the
00:31 US in the 1950s.
00:32 ALEX TUASON We are actually a small tight-knit group
00:37 of family, you know, everyone knows everyone, whether you're from Canada, Alaska, I mean
00:41 there's guys that are lowriding everywhere, but overall, I mean, it does look like a bigger
00:46 scene than it really is. The reason they got their name Lowriders is because they would
00:50 actually be driving solo, scraping up their body, and then from there it eventually grew
00:55 into the culture that we're in now, aftermarket hydraulic pumps, making the cars go up and
01:00 down at a flick of a switch, so it evolved big time.
01:04 COMM: Alex removes the coil springs from the
01:06 car and replaces them with hydraulic cylinders. The hydraulic system is switch operated and
01:12 controlled with a remote or a dial on the dashboard.
01:15 COMM: Building one of these cars cost customers
01:19 anywhere between $2,000 to a few hundred thousand dollars and can take years to complete.
01:25 ALEX TUASON I personally know some guys that probably
01:27 have close to $200,000 to $300,000 into a car. It always starts off, you know, wheels,
01:34 paint, upholstery, undercarriage, hydraulic setup, and then from there you start going
01:39 into detailing everything you just bought. So you buy a stock set of rims and then, 'Hey,
01:44 this looks nice, but let me do something greater.' You've even seen a couple guys that are currently
01:49 building Impalas with like Ferrari motors and stuff like that, so it gets crazy.
01:53 COMM: These heavily customised cars are clearly
01:56 designed to stand out and Alex welcomes the attention.
01:59 ALEX TUASON Being West Coast, you'd think they would
02:02 kind of be used to it because West Coast is like, you know, car culture central right
02:06 here. You know, it never gets old for people. They see it rolling down the streets and you'll
02:10 still get a thumbs up every once in a while. It's pretty cool, you know, you get that reaction,
02:14 especially when you put all that money into the car.
02:15 COMM: Alex has been in the car business all
02:17 his life, helping his father around the shop since he was a child.
02:21 ALEX TUASON I've been doing this since I was in diapers,
02:24 honestly. I grew up around it, in the shop, around the cars. Eventually, you grow into
02:29 grab the tools and help this, you know, help that. My dad's been a big influence in my
02:34 life as far as the car scene, but full time, full time I've been into it about seven, eight
02:40 years now.
02:41 COMM: And he plans to follow in his father's
02:43 footsteps and run the shop in the future.
02:46 ALEX TUASON My dad owns the company. Of course, he's
02:48 showing me the right steps, what to do in order to get to the next level and not only
02:52 building a car but in the business aspect too. So, eventually he's going to hand down
02:56 the business to me. When you build one of these, you build it for yourself. It's fun
03:03 driving a lowrider, man. You can't, there's nothing really else I can describe it, you
03:07 know, you got to get in one and see the reaction for yourself.
03:11 [MUSIC]