(upbeat music)
- You're always gonna run into obstacles,
and you're gonna have people downing you
or putting you down.
Some people thought I wasn't good enough,
and that I was never gonna get anywhere.
That motivated me even more.
Not to show people, but to show myself that I could do it.
I stayed focused, and I never gave up.
(upbeat music)
What I love about the Lowriders are
the hydraulics, the cars, you know up & down, and the drive,
the sound of the tires, listening to music.
Sometimes we get pulled over, they stop,
they wanna take pictures,
and we've even had police pulling us over
just wanting to take pictures.
It's just a great feeling.
(upbeat music)
I have a 1978 Ford Thunderbird.
The general color is lavender,
followed by some accents of multi-color: pink, fuchsia,
purple, and different colors that I chose.
I chose this color because it's different.
Me being a painter,
I kinda always wanna be a little different.
For my hood I chose to do some Murano Pearl accents,
some fades. I added some laser taping
to go with the body style of the car.
I wanted to keep it nice and clean and simple.
Keep it elegant.
That's why I chose these graphics.
I have a 400 stock engine,
with Dayton Wire wheels on 520's,
and I also have a California Upholstery interior.
The main color is black, and I wanted to match the outside,
so I chose a couple of colors
that would match the outside of the car.
Everything else is pretty much original,
and I just accented with adding a custom steering wheel.
I have hydraulics all the way around.
With the moon roof as well.
And also have the retractable headlights.
(upbeat music)
So the plaque is Lifestyle.
Being in the car club means a lot to me.
This is something that I always wanted to be part of.
The reason why I hadn't joined a car club
is because I wanted to be in the right club,
and Lifestyle is a club
that I always wanted to be in when I was a kid.
The name of the car is, "Sweet Fantasy".
When the movie, "Heartbreaker" came out,
I fell in love with that car.
That was the main car of the movie.
So I always wanted to have a car like this
and that's why I named it, "Sweet Fantasy".
So I bought this car about a year ago
and this car needed nothing.
All it needed was to just get in,
drive it, cruise it, enjoy it.
So the car was black before with different colors.
Parts for these type of cars are very hard to get.
I went through a lot trying to find different things,
and moldings, and backlights that I needed,
and it was a struggle, but I wanted to have my touch.
And that's why the car is special to me.
What I love the most about my car is the paint job,
the paint and just the car itself.
It's just a very unique car.
Different, again, from a lot of other lowriders.
But my first Lowrider was a 1973 Impala
that my brother had painted for me.
It was a candy apple red with silver.
Since that, I probably have had maybe 30 lowriders
that I've owned myself.
Every one of them has been a little special.
They're just different than others.
(soft music)
I was born in Michoacan, Mexico.
I have two sisters and two brothers.
My father was an assembler
and my mother was a packer at a packer company.
My mom and my dad wanted a better life for us,
and in 1981 my parents immigrated to Riverside, California.
They couldn't bring us all here
because the finances weren't there.
So the five of us stayed behind
while my mom and dad got situated here.
I was 11 years old and it was devastating.
It was very emotional, very hard.
You don't even know if you're gonna see them again.
So when I moved to the States I was 11 years old.
I ran into some obstacles and some challenges.
Because, you know, there was kids picking on me
'cause I didn't know the language,
I didn't speak the language.
So, it was very depressing at the time,
you know, you come to a different state where
you see everything different.
You ask yourself, "Do I wanna be here?"
"Do I wanna go back?"
Like, "I don't wanna be here."
You know, there was times that I was going to school
and I would go into the restroom and I would cry
because I felt awkward.
But it only took me a year to learn the language.
It was the best thing that my parents ever did for us.
I'm very grateful for them bringing us here
and being where I'm at today.
(soft music)
So I got into lowriding because of my brother,
and I always saw my brother,
you know, working on his cars 'cause my brother's a painter
as well.
I started painting bikes.
I was already in Junior High
when I would offer, just people, to paint their bikes.
I used to love tearing those bikes apart just to paint them.
I turned this into a career when I was introduced to
Daniel Gonzalez from Daniel's Creations.
He was actually my mentor.
You know, me growing up and wanting to learn how to paint,
there was three painters back then in my era
that I looked up to.
Of course, one of them was Daniel.
The other person was Bobby from Candy Connection,
and the other person was Sal Manzano.
Those three painters, in my era,
I learned different tricks from each one of them,
and wanted to be like them.
I would say that it probably took me 14 years
of just learning what to do with different things of paint
and just learning the chemistry of paint.
I insisted on learning.
During my learning the custom painting,
I was introduced to Daniel.
He actually painted a mini truck for me.
And I saw all the creative things that he did to my truck,
and it really, really interested me back then.
I saw him work on my truck so much.
I was always there, being nosy.
And I learned a lot from him.
Every painter has their own style.
I kind of wanted to be my own self and be different.
So I specialize in candies, flakes, pearls.
Every creation has a different technique.
You can't just grab a regular spray gun and go okay,
I'm gonna spray this and,
make sure that it's all gonna come out right.
(upbeat music)
You have to have a lot of patience
when you're doing custom painting,
especially when you're applying the candies.
You know, if you're doing straight candy.
If you don't apply your straight candy correctly,
you'll blotch it.
Then it becomes a mess
and then there's nothing you can do to fix it.
And with flakes you have to do the same thing.
You have to choose the right spray gun
to apply the right products.
And which clear you're gonna apply these flakes with
because, if you just start applying flake
with any type of spray gun,
then you're gonna have a flake all over the place.
Temperature means a lot.
Tip size of the spray gun means a lot,
the gun pressure, everything.
You have to pick all those things
and you have to make sure that all of those things
are in place in order to perform a nice paint job.
So although I joined lifestyle,
I still continue doing work for different clubs
like Imperial, Uniques, Los Angeles
and just different clubs.
I have done some high profile cars,
award-winning cars for different clubs.
About 14 front-cover Lowrider Magazine
cars that I've done, very high profile cars.
Such as, "Candy Kisses", "Cruel Intentions",
"El Perucho", that was my own personal car.
Lowriding now has done really everything for my life.
It motivates me.
It just keeps me going.
I have a passion for it.
For lowriding and I have a passion for painting.
I enjoy doing what I do.
I love it.
I live it, I breathe it.
I eat it.
(laughs)
All of the above.
Never stressed out when I'm painting.
I feel in the zone,
I feel great,
I feel motivated.
Turn my music on.
When I'm painting, I got to have music on.
When I'm doing a straight candy, I could be in the booth for
six to eight hours, straight painting.
You can't be looking at the time going,
"Well, it's almost lunchtime",
or "it's this", or "it's that".
You have to be very dedicated and devoted.
You don't have to be in a multi-million dollar booth
to have a nice creation.
Most beautiful paint jobs come out of a backyard or garage.
I love when my painting gets recognized.
That's the most motivating part for me of painting.
It's when you see people out there admiring your work.
It makes me feel good
and it tells me that that all the hard work has paid of
for me.
But you're always gonna run into obstacles,
and you're gonna have people downing you
or putting you down.
And I never gave up.
I always stood up and I stayed focused.
Pursued my dream, which was to become a custom painter.
Some people thought I wasn't good enough,
and that I was never gonna get anywhere.
It never put me down. It motivated me even more.
Not to show people, but to show myself that I could do it.
(soft music)
For everyone that is probably going through similar
things that I went through,
I would say to them to pursue their dream and don't give up,
and don't let the language barrier stop them.
They have every right to be here as much as everybody else.
They have the right to pursue the American dream like I did.
This is our country, your country,
and if I did it, you can do it.
My name is Louie Carrillo.
I'm a custom painter,
and I'm a Lowrider Roll Model.