(inspirational music)
- If you set your mind
to doing something,
nothing's impossible.
Everything's possible.
You could have whatever you dream of,
and if you keep continuing dreaming big,
you will get there one day.
(hip hop music)
You got to have a lot of patience,
dedication, and passion to build one of these cars.
My first car was a 1963 Impala,
which I had purchased in Bakersville.
It was a project car.
The '63 Impala was a car that was unrestored.
We took that car, stripped it all down,
frame-off restoration.
We painted it Candy Blue with a patterned top.
It was called 'Juiced 63',
which was featured in a couple of magazines.
So what happened when it got featured,
I got contacted a couple months
after the car got featured in the magazine,
and they had offered me $40,000.00 for it.
And I said you know what, why not.
'Cause it was something that I couldn't refuse.
I said, you know what, it's your car.
So, it went to Japan.
(hip hop music)
I love the cars.
Since I was a kid, like I said,
I've loved to see low riders.
There's different ways of building a low rider.
To me, it's an art.
That's the beauty of low-riding.
Right now I'm currently working on 1963 Impala.
A hard top.
Ive had it for 17 years and now,
I have the opportunity to try to put it all together now.
I want it all original GM factory parts.
You know, all NOS parts, which is New Old Stock.
It's going to also have a whole bunch of accessories,
as it's a hard top,
it also has a few more options
that the convertible didn't come with.
This car is going to be fully loaded.
As a matter of fact, that's what I'm calling the car, is
'Fully Loaded'.
And we should be done with this car within the next month,
so people will see it out there.
They will appreciate it just as much as I am.
(hip hop music)
I own a 1963 Impala Super Sport Convertible.
When I seen this car,
it was a car that I just had to have.
It was a car that was fully loaded with factory options.
It's very rare to find a very optioned car out there.
When I bought that car,
I said, Im going to restore this car.
but a lot of people said,
"No leave it alone, dont mess with it."
Which i agreed with them.
I don't want to just yet go into that full restoration
on this car because
you can still smell the old of it
when you're driving it.
It drives so nice, and it's real.
I didn't put them on there.
This car came with them already.
It's an original Honduras Maroon, with black interior.
With a 327 engine, two speed transmission,
four barrel carburetor, with fully optioned accessories.
Factory seat,
a cruise control,
four-way flasher,
autronic eye,
tilt steering column,
power windows,
trunk release,
tachometer,
compass,
vanity mirrors,
under the dash ashtray,
AM/FM radio,
padded dash,
power steering,
power brakes,
locking gas cap.
It was something that you just don't see out there no more.
(light music)
when I was a young kid,
there used to be a shop down the street from our house,
right there off of Pacific and Walnut called
The Gold Exchange.
There used to be a guy there that used to work there,
his name is Richard Silva.
He went by 'Ritchie Rich'.
He was the number one hopper at the time.
He was a champion for a lot of years.
He would give us money to wash his cars,
to clean the windows,
and just keep all the kids in the neighborhood,
try to keep us off the streets,
teach us right from wrong and talk about his cars
and the rare stuff that he had on there.
That's how I got the passion of low-riding.
I come from a family of 11.
We learned a lot from each other.
My mom, my dad worked all their lives just to support us.
My mom sometimes had to work 2 jobs day and night
just to put food on our table,
clothes on our backs.
They couldn't give us everything we wanted
just because it was so many of us.
My mom was in the sewing business,
and she used to work for a factory, sewing.
And my dad was a janitor.
It was tough once you get older,
you kind of realize what your parents did
to try to provide for you.
Once I got older, if I wanted name-brand clothes,
I had to go work for them.
And, I found every little way of getting out there
and hustling to try to make money,
so when we did go back to school,
I had money to buy the clothes that I wanted, you know?
I went from collecting cans,
to selling raspados at the park,
from buying stuff at the 99-cent store and
selling it for more money.
I'd buy baseball hats that they had one time
at the 99-cent store,
and I bought a whole bunch of them for a dollar each
and go sell them at the park for five bucks.
I didn't go out there begging for money,
I went out there and worked for my money.
I was a collector.
I would collect baseball cards,
hot wheels, action figures,
stuff like that that I would go to the store and buy
a couple of the ones I thought that were rare,
and then I was holding on to them 'cause I figure,
one day, I'mma have a business where
I can make money with this stuff.
And my dad told me,
if you graduate,
I will help you on whatever you want to do.
That was his dream, just try to keep me out of trouble.
I was working for a guy at the Santa Fe Spring Swap Meet,
which was selling the same things I used to be a collector,
you know, baseball cards, action figures,
just stuff like that on the weekends.
I learned a lot from him.
After I graduated from highschool,
I said, that's what I want to do.
I want to have my own business,
I want to sell sports car, to action figures,
collectibles.
I started at the outdoor swap meet doing that.
With a small booth, $500.00.
That's how (chuckles) my dad helped me out, with $500.00.
He didn't have much, but we made it grow as it went on
and on and on and on and on and it was just a weekly thing.
Once that business grew, I got into the Compton Indoor.
The business just got bigger, and bigger as I was in there
with more of the collectibles, and stuff like that.
Baseball cards...
I love toys.
Maybe because we didn't get to have them
when we were kids.
We went to the store,
and all we could do was look at them
because our parents couldn't afford to buy them for us.
When I got to a point where I was already in junior high
and I was already making a little bit of money,
I would go out there and buy it and save it,
and appreciate what I had
and praise it,
like, oh, man, this is rare, this is good.
Because I didn't get to have that when I was a kid.
I'm the founder of Collector's Choice Toys and Hobbies.
We're located here in the city of Paramount, California.
I started Collector's Choice back in '93,
with a simple $500.00 investment,
to being one of the biggest distributors
in the West Coast for toys.
We're a distributor,
and we're an importer, exporter of toys.
We distribute toys from
Mattel,
Revell,
Funko,
Jada,
Maisto,
McFarlane.
We sell products to customers in Mexico,
Australia,
Spain,
Japan,
you name it, world-wide.
Once we open all these doors,
we were able to sell to a lot of mom and pop shops
that were doing what I did when I first started.
(inspirational music)
I love what I do,
and it keeps me motivated
'cause it's fun.
It's fun and I see that I could do more with it.
Because my toy business was so successful,
I was able to start DGA Tees
with David Gonzales,
the creator of the Homies,
which does all of this art work
which caters to the Chicano industry.
We do from T-shirts, to seat covers, from blankets,
you name it.
There was a logo for the Lowrider Man,
but there was nothing made for him.
So I contacted Lowrider and
asked if there was an opportunity to make this toy.
And I've seen an opportunity to be able to license
the figurine for this Lowrider Man.
I asked Dave if he could design me a figurine and
he was more than happy to do it because he's always had
a passion for the brand.
He was really excited to design the figurine for us.
Someone that doesn't get low-riding,
they're missing out.
When I'm driving my cars,
it's never bothered me what other people thought.
Low-riding is an art.
And when I see people out there driving a low rider,
and it's nice and clean,
you got to give it to them because
I know that ain't come easy.
My advice to a lot of the people that are out there
that are going through the hard struggle
that I went through,
nothing is impossible.
And I encourage everybody that's out there to not give up.
Everything is possible in life,
and you can do whatever you accomplish yourself to do.
Just keep moving forward.
Keep opening them doors,
and once you get there,
you're going to see the light shine on you.
My name is Cesar Lozano,
I'm an entrepreneur,
and I'm a Lowrider Roll Model.
(instrumental music)