It’s official. California lowrider culture will be celebrated with a special license plate

“No cruising” signs used to be posted throughout California, banning lowriders from the roads. Now, those same vehicles will be celebrated with their own custom license plate.

Decades of lowrider, Chicano and Latino culture will soon be recognized after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on Wednesday Assembly Bill 2541. The bill requires the California Arts Council to consult with stakeholders and communities for the design of the plate and will direct a portion of the proceeds to be reinvested into lowrider communities for cultural preservation. 

“For generations, our communities have used lowriders to tell our stories, celebrate our heritage and create something beautiful out of the streets we call home,” bill author Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement. “Yet too often, lowriders were treated as a problem to be policed instead of a culture to be celebrated. AB 2541 helps change that narrative.”

A staple in many Chicano and Latino communities, the classic, hydraulic lowriders used to be the target of local ordinances and statewide codes.

A section added to the California Vehicle Code in 1958 banned modified cars whose frames were lower than the wheel rims — the classic lowrider look. In 1988, the California Legislature passed a bill allowing cities to pass anti-cruising ordinances. Los Angeles and Sacramento were two of the cities that adopted the restrictions.

Sacramento repealed its ban in 2022, while the Los Angeles ban was in place up until 2023, when the state officially reversed the 1988 law, prohibiting all anti-cruising ordinances and bans.

"Anti-cruising ordinances and signs didn’t just serve to take the beloved vehicles off the streets, but to make their drivers feel 'othered,'" said Carlos Molina III, the director of narrative change and special projects at Brown Issues, AB 2541’s sponsor.

“It's a sense of, within our own communities, not belonging, of stigmatizing, and of course, even criminalizing,” Molina told CALÓ News on Wednesday. “And so [anti-cruising signs] were metal and letters and it's ironic in a way that these license plates, metal and letters, but it represents something completely different.”

Molina said having specialized license plates “honors the culture, the engineering, the craftsmanship and the community that is lowriding.”

“The Golden State is made for classic-car lovers and our lowriders are timeless masterpieces that connect art, activism and cultural identity throughout our state," Newsom said in a statement.

The recognition of lowrider culture, and by extension Latino culture, comes at a time when the state’s Latino and immigrant communities are being targeted by the federal government.

The bill cements the lowriding and Latino community “as part of California’s fabric,” Molina said.

Alongside the special plate bill, Newsom also signed SB 1392 on Wednesday, dubbed Jay Leno’s law after the comedian’s expansive class car collection. The bill will create a phased-in smog check exemption for specific collector cars built between 1976 and 1985. He also signed SB 1069, which will expedite the state approval process for manufacturers selling aftermarket parts.

As for AB 2541, the California Arts Council will be directed to conduct community outreach and work with other stakeholders in the lowrider community to design the plate to be issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

The bill specifies that revenue from plate sales, approved by the Legislature, be reinvested into lowrider communities to support arts and cultural lowrider preservation.

Reinvestment will serve to carry “this legacy forward for the next generation,” Gonzalez said.

“You have a lot of people that have this depiction of lowriders because of Hollywood films,” Molina said.
”That they're gang members or drug dealers, they're up to no good. What better way to flip that on its head than turn these lowriders into philanthropists, which essentially they will be. They'll be bringing their dollars together to make a social impact in the communities that lowriding originated from.”