"Big Spike" Martinez, of Majestics, is no stranger to the limelight because he's been in the lowriding circuit for years. Spike, who grew up in Huntington Park, California, has owned several cars and came from the street hopping side of lowriding. With several house calls under his belt, Spike tried his luck at building a show winner.
First on the agenda was to find a true '87 Cutlass Brougham, which he'd discovered he wanted from his previous experiences on the boulevard. In the past, if you owned a car that was updated, the cops would pull you over just to question you about whether the parts were stolen. This was more of a nightmare for the customized Cutlasses because it was just another reason to get pulled over. Spike didn't want to deal with that, so he waited patiently and found this ride not far from home in a local neighborhood.
When it was all said and done, Spike came home with this '87 Cutlass Brougham, which he picked up for $1,500. The G-body was loaded with all the options that Spike was looking for. The car came with the Euro clip, power windows, and a V-6. Usually everyone looks for the V-8 version but since Spike couldn't stay away from the street hops, he wanted to lighten the load in the front of the car.
Spike jumped into the five-month build, doing most of it by himself. He started off this build, as he does most of his projects, by pulling the frame off the car. Since Spike is a welder by trade, he had no problem reinforcing the frame to take on the abuse from his soon-to-be hydraulic system. He took on the task of building a four-link suspension out of 2-inch square stock, which allowed the car to lock up 48 inches.
Since the engine was off the car, Spike decided to lighten it up by removing accessories that the car wasn't going to need. The engine was painted and assembled in the color that the frame would be sprayed in and then the rolling chassis was assembled and dressed in full chrome.
Since Spike lucked out on this Cherry Cutlass, the bodywork was a breeze. Felix, of Gator's Customs who had painted the frame and engine, did all of the prep work on the body and sprayed it in a PPG Mint Green. Before the car was assembled, Spike decided to give Carlos, also from Gators, a shot at some murals and allowed him to airbrush a scene of evil girls and skulls around the sides of the car. Before the car was cleared it was taken to Mike Lamberson, of Riverside, California, who added his touch of striping to the car, breaking up the artwork and adding to other sections of the car.
With the itch of building something that would leave an effect on people, Spike called on his club brother and Dream Team Captain, Todd Land, of Street Life Hydraulics in Phoenix. It was all downhill for Spike as he installed the setup, which included 22-inch rear strokes to allow the car to lock up. With 10 batteries, the two-pump setup was ready to terrorize the streets.
The last few things that needed to be done to complete "Anthrax" were the interior and mounting the custom 13x7 wheels. Spike went back to Joe at California Upholstery, in Bell Gardens, California, his original upholstery guy, who had done all his other interiors. When Joe saw the car for the first time he knew that it needed to be different, so he wrapped the interior in two tones of suede and complemented it with Sting Ray inserts.
Once the interior and the hydraulics were done, Spike took his time and installed a Kenwood head unit that controls the Fosgate amplifier and can be heard through the JL Audio woofers and Kenwood midrange speakers. With this sound system Spike can be heard coming down the road, but sometimes that doesn't matter when you see him coming down the street gas hopping.