Public Perception, Persona, Profile, Reputation, StatureAs a young man growing up in the city of El Monte, California, Carlos Carbajal was exposed to things like the music of the '60s, the Chicano movement, the man out to get the minority, and just living the life of a young Chicano. During the late '60s, when lowriding was gaining momentum, Carlos met with a few young vatos who would play a pivotal role in him becoming a lowrider. One of those people was Ruben "Buggs" Ochoa, who was inducted in last year's Lowrider Hall of Fame as a Craftsman Honoree.
During a lowrider happening in downtown L.A., Carlos met up with some classmates from Cathedral High School, his alma mater. "In my junior year of high school there were some classmates who had cars with plaques, although I wasn't really into them at the time," Carlos says. "I kept in touch with my friends, eventually got interested, and bought a car. I was really into the paintjobs, the alpha jewels, and the flake tops. I ran into a buddy of mine named Sammy Alvidres from the Groupe Car Club who said to go check them [his car club] out and go to a meeting or one of their car shows. So I went out there and that was the first time I met Ruben Ochoa. He was there coordinating all the cars. There were a lot of guys from my high school getting their cars ready on turntables for shows and so on. Buggs began telling me about his painting style and we became friends that very day," he says. Later on Carlos picked up a '69 Chevy Camaro and approached Buggs about painting it, to which Buggs said, "Yeah, you just gotta wait in line."
Even though a '69 Camaro was more of a muscle car, Carlos had a certain vision for it. It took many nights for the car to be painted, which involved several months of picking up Buggs to go out to the shop and have him lay out the tape for the patterns and other graphics. Carlos also needed connections with the upholstery and began scheduling other car stuff, all of which made it easier for the project to move along. "I did the custom lights on the rear with Frank Cordova's help. He used to be really good friends with the car clubs whose members were into lowering their cars. He did my frontend work. At the time Camaros had round lights, but he put in square lights for me. I won a lot of paint awards being in a semi-custom category, plus it helped having a Buggs' paintjob. It was one of the best, and even the Imperials [Car Club] who had quite a few customs of their own were in awe of it because it was a unique type of car," Carlos says.
Within a six-month period of his getting into the lowrider scene, Carlos was initiated into the Groupe Car Club. That was in 1974. "After I was in, I was voted head of the car committee, having to coordinate 150 members into car caravans, checking on dirty tires and plaques. If there was something wrong with their cars, I was in charge of that, which wasn't an easy job," Carlos says.
Carlos has not only dealt with a lot of cars, but a lot of sometimes-tough personalities and egos, but just like Buggs, Carlos is a peacekeeper. "I wasn't into the [car club] wars. I liked to keep it cool, but sometimes we had to do what we had to do to back up our car club, and we did it," he says. Carlos prefers that everyone work out their differences with other clubs at the car shows in a peaceful manor. He feels that the cars will "speak" for themselves as to who is the baddest that day. "Back then there was only R.G. Canning and the ISCA [International Show Car Association], which were Anglo car show circuits that I later judged for," he says. "Then later on I became a judge for R.G. Canning." During one of the Canning events, Carlos was showing his Camaro and was approached by the judging staff and their Chief Judge Mr. Straussberg who asked him to help them judge lowriders.
Lowriders were being acknowledged at these mainstream events and people were noticing that this slice of the custom car world would be more valid as time passed. The ones who really had the vision were Carlos and his buddy Buggs. "We felt it was injustice to the lowriders at these 'white boy' shows in general. This was before Lowrider magazine and Q-Vo magazine," Carlos says. "Buggs did the first show with the Imperials Car Club at the Great Western Exhibit. Later on Buggs approached me, and with the financial backing of my late father we did the Great Western Show [ourselves] the following year. By then we had formed Show and Custom." In order to have the possibility of having a car show at any facility the guys had to have a formal judging body to conduct any kind of sanctioned event. "We initially formed 21 categories, which R.G. Canning didn't have. They were very minimal as late as 1980."