Los Angeles’ Petersen Automotive Museum recently opened “La Vida Lowrider: Cruising the City of Angels,” an exhibit featuring lowrider cars, bikes, photos and other historic memorabilia relating to lowrider culture. Like our virginity? Kidding:

Lowering the bodies of old, cheap cars by cutting their springs began in the late 1940s, but that was only part of how the customizers, who were usually Mexican American, changed the cars. […] The late Julio Ruelas, a founder of the Dukes Car Club, once said that the colors of the cars harked back to the bright colors of feathers in an Aztec headdress.

Ah, we were wondering what that spray-painted woman in a headdress fellating a snake on the side of our uncle’s van was all about:

Speaking of chicks, what does the exhibit’s curator, Denise Sandoval, have to say about the sexist aspect of lowriding?:

Sandoval emphasizes the upbeat side of the culture. For her, even the pinup-style women draped across lowrider hoods, often in bathing suits of a color to match the car’s paint, are simply reflections of a wider culture. “Lowrider culture is a very male cultural space,” she said. “The bodies of cars are presented like the bodies of women.”

Upbeat! Or the opposite. See? Women are like art. Art that is meant to be ridden. Thanks Denise.

Lowrider culture gets high profile [San Francisco Chronicle]