Sunday August 6th, 2017, with grey skies and possible rain looming in the forecast to start the day the sun fought through the Slow & Low Community Lowrider Festival took place in one of my favorite cities of Chicago, IL. For the 6th year in a row the Chicago Urban Arts Society put together this wonderful community event of culture, cars, music and art right in the streets of the south sides own Pilsen neighborhood.
This year was my first time going to the show and with my own history of low riders and time spent in Chicago; I was really looking forward to attending it. As a teenager and young adult I built a number of my own custom low rider bikes and was also a member of Chicago Car Club Ground Force. In my time as a member I attended numerous shows, won trophies with my own custom builds and also helped out in the building of a few other members trophy winning rides.
The tradition of building a low rider – or any custom vehicle for that matter – is something that is very near and dear to my heart. For me, they are a beautiful and artful testament to our ever so colorful Latino culture as they join muscle & brawn under the hood with art and style on the exterior and interior. The lineup for this year’s show featured plenty of great examples of this as South Loomis Street was lined with a wide variety of candy painted, chromed out, juiced up, lifted, dropped, chopped, pinstriped low rider cars, motorcycles, trucks, bicycles, bombitas and street rides that were not only from the Chicagoland area, but also my home state of Wisconsin and even from as far away as California as well.
Here below is just a small sample of what was there at the show including some the action from the car hop competition. If you are any kind of custom car enthusiast living in the Chicago area I highly recommend looking out for and attending next year’s show. I know I for sure, most definitely will be returning to Pilsen, camera in hand ready to check out some of Chi-Town’s sweetest rides.
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