Public perception, persona, profile, reputation, statureGrowing up on the streets of Jalisco, Mexico, is no place for any youngster. With its busy street action and the possibility of getting tied up in the wrong element, it's easy to imagine how a young George Luna got caught up in the gang lifestyle, which ended up becoming a big part of his life. Up until his teen years, George was surrounded by criminals, doing what he had to do but never getting carried away with his actions. He was always aware of his surroundings.
His family relocated to South Central Los Angeles, which George refers to as his "ghetto life." The first thing 13-year-old George did was join a gang. Being the stranger on the streets of South Central wasn't healthy, so George felt he needed to belong to something in order to fit in and survive.
But what about the cars and the lowriders? How did they fit into all of this? Well, to back up a bit, George actually bought his first car, a Volkswagen Bug, when he was just 10 years old. Since he was still in Jalisco and the laws are much different in Mexico, George found a way to drive and own his first car in the early '70s. But George's first taste of lowriding would be as a teenager when he found himself and his homies on Whittier Boulevard. "I was into gangs. We used to cruise Whittier Boulevard in my homey's '65 Impala, and we used to love it," George says. "Cruising the streets and the hynas and partying all the time was something outta this world. I really liked it!"
Even though the experiences were overwhelming for George, it would be a while before he had his first legitimate ride. "I really wanted to get into a bomb, a classic car, because my dad was into them," George says. "He had a '51 Chevy that I learned to drive in, and he also had a '51 Panel. I grew up as a mechanic with my dad who liked working on cars. I didn't know what a lowrider was back then, I just knew what kind of car I wanted to have." George didn't really become a lowrider until he settled down from his ways of the gang life and began to work more on his car projects.