Even though his car was not finished, Marcos would still travel to and attend many car shows. Throughout the years, he kept picking away at the car, working on it slowly. He was determined to finish the car, even though he had a lot on his plate; he had gotten married, remodeled his house, and became the co-curator of a big art exhibit.
The art exhibit that Marcos Gaitan co-founded with his college friend Lissa Jones was the "Mi Coche, My Culture" exhibit, held at The Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose, CA. On the opening night of the exhibition, there was a line of a few hundred people waiting to get inside, and the street was covered with news vans. He took a moment to take in the feeling of it all. "Wait a minute, this is just an art show," Marcos thought to himself, "art exhibits don't get national press coverage like this." The art exhibit was featured in local newspapers and news stations, and received coverage in countless magazines, including an article in the pages of Lowrider Magazine. Considering that Marcos and Lissa only had a month and a half to get everything ready, it was obvious that the exhibit was a total success.
When the time came to work on the car, Marcos began the process by taking his car to a small-time guy, who had a reputation of doing decent work within the Lowrider scene. That guy nearly destroyed the car, much to Marcos' chagrin. "He messed up the doors, the sunroof, the hood, the trunk and he even ended up selling my car," he says, flabbergasted. Marcos ended up taking him to court for selling the car, and had to change almost every single part on that car. "And that's before I did any of the custom work," he insists.
He ended up taking his car to the guys you see in Rodders Journal. "These are the guys that go to the Goodguys shows or the Rod and Custom shows," says Marcos, adding that "the reason I went to them was because of my previous experience." Having only Hall of Famers in the rod scene like Marcos Garcia, John Aiello and Bob Divine work on his car, Marcos was invited to be the first Lowrider to show his car on the main floor of the San Francisco Rod and Custom show, three years ago. Unfortunately, Marcos was unable to complete the car in time. "This car has put me thru hell and back. We stayed up until midnight trying to get this car finished for the photo shoot," recalls the tired artist.
Since all the cues come from the past, very little has changed in the design of the car over the past 10 years. "I designed the paint job the night before I took my car into the paint shop, I did the drawings in color and then just went for it," explains Marcos, stating that the paint job was also cued from the '50's and '60's style. Ten pounds of a special blend of flake was purposely laid on the car. "Usually you can see behind the flake, but I didn't want that. If you look at the paint you can see that it's rock solid, you can't see thru the flake."
Due to a money issue, Marcos ended up doing everything backwards on the car. When the time came to put the engine in, the car was already painted. "We ended up putting the engine in with the transmission and the whole front clip on, the only thing that was removed was the hood," he says. With the car already painted, nobody dared to use the engine jack. Everyone told Marcos "it's your car, you put it in." The nervous Marcos slowly dropped the engine in, knowing that one wrong move would seriously damage his car. With the help of fellow club member Raul Lerma guiding the engine from underneath the car, it only took them 20 minutes to put the engine in.