After that, we got mini bikes, which sometimes broke, and we had lowrider bikes, which my dad used to paint for us, complete with spotlights and chrome fenders, sissy bars, and those metal flake seats. At a early age he used to do things for us that really influenced us, for example, I still have my first Tonka truck that he lowered and flaked out the top. This Tonka truck served as the blue print to what would be my first car. As I was growing up, my Grandpa Pete said, "Mijo, this truck is going to be yours when you get old enough to have it," and he kept his promise. When I was old enough to drive he gave me the truck, and that's when I started lowriding. I de-arched the leaf springs to lower it, put some chrome rocket wheels on it, and then eventually threw on some Tru Spokes. We couldn't afford to take our cars to body shops, so we learned on our own. As soon as we were able to paint, we candied and two-toned the truck the same way that my dad had painted the Tonka truck.
Our uncles also taught us bodywork and were very influential on us. They're a little older than us, in fact, they used to cruise Bellflower and Whittier Boulevards back in the day. My uncle Freddy, my uncle Raymond, and my uncle Gilbert used to go out there in their cars. In those days, they used cement bags to lower their cars. We had an uncle Raul who used to channel his cars as well. He had a brand-new '54 Chevy at the time. Like I said, we couldn't afford to take our cars to go have them painted or get new brakes put in, so we learned right here in our garage. If a situation occurred where we couldn't do it or couldn't finish the job, we would ask someone to help us complete it. In most cases though, we would end up figuring it out by ourselves.
Our mom was very supportive of our hobby, and was always cool with us having a car as long as it was insured. She use to tell us "I'm not going to lose my house because you guys don't have insurance!" So we all had our jobs, mine just happened to be wheels and tires. I got my first job with a wheel place and I've been doing that just about all my life. I've seen all kinds of cars hot-rods, customs, and lowriders, I guess you could say that I know what's going on out there with all the current styles of wheels that people are using.