[November 20, 2008]

Gold-plated '64 Chevy lowrider an obsession

(Santa Fe New Mexican, The Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 20--Fred Rael's 1964 Chevrolet Impala convertible lowrider is as good as gold.

Indeed, some of its parts are plated with 24-carat gold, as befits a classic lowrider. It's either gold or chrome for lowriders, and Rael has both. He reserved the chrome for plating the continental tire kit that extends from the rear of his champagne-colored Impala.

Lowriders are a special class of custom-built cars. They originated in the Mexican and Chicano communities in Los Angeles County, where Rael, 44, spent part of his growing years. He was born in Questa, on the Red River north of Taos, and returned to New Mexico to live in Espanola in 1976, where he's been ever since. "Espanola was full of lowriders in the '70s," he said. "I got used to lowriders in L.A."

Rael bought the originally white-over-black Chevy in 1993 in Taos for $4,000 and has sunk $20,000 into the 1964 Impala, one of the classic must-haves for conversion to a lowrider. The gold plating -- thin leaf over nickel -- alone cost $2,000. He's been showing it since 1995 and said it's won 40 trophies. Not surprising.

Someone offered him $50,000 for the car, but Rael spurned him.

"I turned him down because then I would have been without a lowrider," he said. His car was about an inch off the ground in front of two other lowriders at last month's car show in the Santa Fe High School parking lot.

"We work so that we can have a lowrider," Rael said, accompanied by two friends who are among the seven members of the Prestigious Car Club in Espanola. "It's more important to me to have a nice car than it is to have a new house or an education."

Why?

"I guess we're obsessed," he said, speaking for his like-minded friends as well as himself. "It motivates us. There's got to be something that motivates us to go to work every day. We want to get a better job so that we can make more money so that we can spend it on our cars."

Rael, an electrician, is head of maintenance at the Ponce de Leon Retirement Community in Santa Fe.

He got into cars beginning at age 6 or 7 -- "I used to draw pictures of them" -- and has had lowriders for 29 years.

"To me, there would be no point in having a car if it wasn't a lowrider," Rael said. "If I ever buy a car and don't make it into a lowrider, then it's time to stop. Why have an old car if it ain't fun." He was telling, not asking.

The Impala is powered by a 283-cubic-inch V-8 that puts out 190 horsepower; it's a replacement for the same-sized original. Rael has no idea of the mileage. It's also painted champagne.

It took him two years to convert the Chevy into a lowrider, and he did everything himself but gold-plating extremities such as the side-view mirror, the door handles, part of the steering column, visors over each of the four headlights and the wire spokes on the wheels. The wheels are six sizes smaller than the original 14-inchers that came from the factory.

He also left installation of the convertible top and the twin exhausts to someone else.

Using the same type of airbag suspension system that's common on trailers, Rael can control the dipping, raising and leaning of the Impala with 10 switches on a control box that he can set on the front bench seat. The car can be lowered to sit on the ground or raised a maximum of 8 inches.

"I like the way it looks on the floor," he said. "I can drive it from a half-inch to 8 inches -- all different ways. I'm always adjusting the height." It's against the law in New Mexico to adjust the height of lowriders while they're moving.

And Rael isn't finished yet. He's got two more convertibles -- a 1963 Impala that's "in pieces" and another 1964 -- waiting for conversion to lowriders. "And then I have my Cadillac" -- a 1994 Fleetwood. His daily driver is a sedate 1994 Honda Accord.

Is it love that motivates lowrider owners? "I don't know if it's love," Rael replied. "It's more of an obsession. Love is what you reserve for the family. I could always build another car."

Richard C. Gross is a Santa Fe-based writer and editor. E-mail him at drive@sfnewmexican.com.

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