Low and slow — until the car lifts, settles, and lifts again.
These five stamps celebrate lowrider culture, rooted in the working-class Mexican American and Chicano communities of the American Southwest in the 1940s, now represented in the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and emulated by clubs in other countries. Art director Antonio Alcalá chose photography over illustration. “Photography helps honour the hard work that goes into the creation of each car,” he says; illustration, he felt, would be more about the artist's imagination than about actual lowriders. The set includes Let the Good Times Roll/Soy Como Soy, a blue 1946 Chevrolet Fleetline, and Pocket Change, a green 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, photographed by Philip Gordon; and Eight Figures, The Golden Rose and El Rey — a 1958, 1964 and 1963 Chevrolet Impala — by Humberto “Beto” Mendoza. Stamps run a third wider than usual, with Gothic lettering and Danny Alvarado's pinstriping in each corner.
Chrome, velvet, and a welded-chain steering wheel. All of it at a third wider than usual.
PERFECT FOR: letters to car people, lowrider club gifts, journal pages, garage-wall framing, and automotive collections that prefer culture over horsepower.
