With just a flick of a switch, 3000 pounds
of metal bounces up and down 8 ft in the
air. 25 year old Alex Tuason creates these custom
lowrider cars that defy gravity at his father's shop,
Poppo's custom suspension Works. We specialize in aftermarket suspension
, particularly hydraulic and air suspension. The low rider
community emerged in the US in the 1950s. We
are actually a small tight knit group of family you
know everyone knows everyone whether you're from Canada, Alaska
I mean there's guys that are low riding everywhere but
overall I mean it does look like a bigger scene
than it really is. The reason they got their
name low riders is because they would actually be driving
so low, scraping up their body, and then
from there eventually grew into a culture that we're in
now, aftermarket hydraulic pumps, making the cars go
up and down at a flick of a switch,
so it evolved big time. 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 a dial on the dashboard. Building
one of these cars costs customers anywhere between$2000 to
a few$100,000 and can take years to complete.
I personally know some guys that probably have close to
$200,000 to$300,000 into a car. It always starts
off, you know, wheels, paint, upholstery
, under. Carriage hydraulic set up and then from
there you start going into detailing everything you just bought
so you buy a stock set of rims and then
hey this looks nice but let me do some engraving
even seeing a couple of guys that are currently building
Impalas with like Ferrari motors and stuff like that so
it gets crazy. These heavily customized cars are clearly
designed to stand out, and Alex welcomes the attention
. Being West Coast, you would think they would
kind of be used to it because West Coast is
like, you know, car culture central right here
, you know, it, it never gets old
for people. They see it rolling down the streets
and you'll still get a thumbs up every once in
a while. It's, it's, it's pretty cool
, you know. You get that reaction, especially
if you put all that money into the car.
Alex has been in the car business all his life
, helping his father around the shop since he was
a child. I, I've been doing this since
I was in diapers, honestly. I grew up
around it in the shop, around the cars.
Eventually you grow to grab the tools and help this
and help that, and my dad's been a big
influence in my life as far as the car scene
, but full time, full time, I've been
into it about 78 years now. And he plans
to follow in his father's footsteps and run the shop
in the future. My dad owns the company,
of course he's showing me the right steps, what
to do in order to get to the next level
, and not only building a car but in the
business aspect too. So eventually he's going to hand
down the business to me. When you build one
of these, you, you build it for yourself
it's it's fun driving a low rider man it's you
you can't, there's nothing really else I could describe
it, you know you gotta get in one and
and see the reaction for yourself.