Hydraulic Lowrider Cars Defy Gravity
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 COMM With just a flick of a switch, 3,000 pounds
00:07of metal bounces up and down, 8 feet in the air. 25-year-old Alex Tuason creates these
00:15custom lowrider cars that defy gravity at his father's shop, Popo's Custom Suspension
00:21Works.
00:22ALEX We specialize in aftermarket suspension, particularly
00:26hydraulic and air suspension.
00:29COMM COMM The lowrider community emerged in the U.S.
00:32in the 1950s.
00:33ALEX We are actually a small, tight-knit group
00:37of family. Everyone knows everyone, whether you're from Canada, Alaska. I mean, there's
00:41guys that are lowriding everywhere. But overall, I mean, it does look like a bigger scene than
00:46it really is. The reason they got their name Lowriders is because they would actually be
00:51driving solo, scraping up their body. And then from there, it eventually grew into the
00:56culture that we're in now, aftermarket hydraulic pumps, making the cars go up and down at
01:00a flick of a switch. So it evolved big time.
01:04COMM COMM Alex removes the coil springs from the car
01:07and replaces them with hydraulic cylinders. The hydraulic system is switch-operated and
01:12controlled with a remote or a dial on the dashboard. Building one of these cars costs
01:19customers anywhere between $2,000 to a few hundred thousand dollars and can take years
01:25to complete.
01:26ALEX I personally know some guys that probably have
01:28close to $200,000 to $300,000 into a car. It always starts off, you know, wheels, paint,
01:35upholstery, undercarriage, hydraulic setup. And then from there, you start going into
01:39detailing everything you just bought. So you buy a stock set of rims and then, hey, this
01:44looks nice, but let me do something great. I've even seen a couple guys that are currently
01:49building Impalas with Ferrari motors and stuff like that. So it gets crazy.
01:54COMM COMM These heavily customized cars are clearly
01:56designed to stand out, and Alex welcomes the attention.
01:59ALEX Being West Coast, you would think they would
02:02kind of be used to it, because West Coast is like, you know, car culture central right
02:06here. You know, it never gets old for people. They see it rolling down the streets and you'll
02:10still get a thumbs up every once in a while. It's pretty cool, you know, you get that reaction,
02:14especially when you put all that money into the car.
02:15COMM COMM Alex has been in the car business all his
02:18life, helping his father around the shop since he was a child.
02:21ALEX I've been doing this since I was in diapers,
02:24honestly. I grew up around it, in the shop, around the cars. Eventually, you grow into
02:29grab the tools and help this, you know, help that. And my dad's been a big influence in
02:34my life as far as the car scene. But full time, full time, I've been into it about seven,
02:40eight years now.
02:41COMM COMM And he plans to follow in his father's
02:43footsteps and run the shop in the future.
02:46ALEX My dad owns the company. Of course, he's
02:48showing me the right steps, what to do in order to get to the next level, and not only
02:52building a car, but in the business aspect too. So, eventually, he's going to hand down
02:56the business to me. When you build one of these, you build it for yourself. It's fun
03:03driving a lowrider, man. You can't, there's nothing really else I can describe it. You
03:08got to get in one and see the reaction for yourself.