American automotive magazine
Lowrider was an American automobile magazine, focusing almost exclusively on the style known as a lowrider. It first appeared in 1977, produced out of San Jose, California, by a trio of San Jose State students. In 2007, it was published out of Anaheim, California, and part of the Motor Trend Group. The magazine was closed in December 2019.[2]
Lowrider focused on all aspects of lowrider culture, from cars to music and fashion. It also covered political and cultural issues related to Chicanos, and funded an annual scholarship program.[3] The magazine also released a series of music videos[4] through their label, Thump Records.
Lowrider's monthly circulation was less than 56,000 at the end of 2011.[1] In 2000, the magazine's monthly circulation was more than 200,000.[3]
Publication history
Lowrider was founded in the mid-1970s by San Jose State students Larry Gonzalez, Sonny Madrid, and David Nunez, "who sought to present a voice for the Chicano community in the Bay Area."[3] The first issue debuted in January 1977.
Essentially self-distributed,[5] the magazine struggled until the November 1979 issue, when it began pairing bikini-clad women with lowriders on the cover each issue.[3]
An early artistic contributor to the magazine, David Holland, split with Lowrider to found his own Teen Angels Magazine in 1979, with the first issue published in 1981.[6][7]
In the early 1980s, Lowrider also featured cartoonist David Gonzales' monthly comic strip The Adventures of Hollywood, which eventually morphed into the Homies line of toy figurines.[5]
Even so, after being taken over by its printer, Lowrider folded in December 1985.[3]
The magazine was revived in June 1988 by original co-founder Larry Gonzalez along with brothers Alberto and Lonnie Lopez.[3] They moved the magazine's headquarters to Fullerton, California[3] (closer to the heart of lowrider culture), and began featuring customized trucks on the cover.[3]
As the magazine increased readership through the late 1980s and early '90s it spun off other titles, established a merchandising division, and began sponsoring multi-annual lowrider shows which took place all over the Western U.S.[3]
Lowrider Publishing Group was acquired in 1997 by automotive periodicals conglomerate McMullen Argus Publishing, which was itself acquired in 1999 by PriMedia.[3] In 2007, Lowrider was taken over by Source Interlink Media, now known as TEN: The Enthusiast Network.[2]
