(mellow funk music)
- My dad always told me "You go out,
"you put an honest day's work in,
"you work hard, and you'll always have work."
That's how I've taken my steps in life,
and it's been with me this whole time.
Lowriding, for me, started at a early age.
We would go to my cousin's house,
and one day we were sitting there watching TV,
and he's like, "Hey, I wanna show you guys something."
So I go out there and there's a shiny blue car.
So he gets in the seat,
and then all of a sudden
I seed him doing something inside the car,
and then the back of the car's going up and down,
and I was just like, wow, what the heck is that?
That is, I think, where lowriding for me began.
(chill funk music)
I have a 1958 Chevrolet Impala convertible.
It has a full candy, multi-color paint job.
The base coat is a candy gold
sunset with multiple colors,
blues, purples, greens, oranges, tangerines.
We wanted this car to really stand out,
make it loud,
but also come out of the box
and use colors that a lot of people
were not using at the time.
So my engine is a LS1
with a fully polished aluminum block.
It has paint to match,
fully custom made parts,
everything is just detailed
the same way that the outside of the car has been built.
So the wire wheels are a custom 120 spoke
made by LA Wire Wheels,
fully engraved by Ernon from Engrave It.
The spokes were painted to match the color of the car,
Zenith knockoffs and custom chips
that were made and designed by us at C & C Customs.
(chill classic R&B music)
So the interior was equipped with a 1967 Buick Riviera
bench, bucket seat combination.
We used a bone-colored leather interior
with alligator highlights.
The dash was also painted to match the car
which would flow from the dash onto the hood.
Inside the trunk lid is molded with a mural
by Sammy De Leon.
The underside of the hood is also molded with murals,
and around the murals
the painter had did all his graphics
to border the murals.
The entire trunk is fiberglass,
molded and painted to match the exterior of the car.
The hydraulics were all custom made by C & C Customs.
Everything was designed on an AutoCAD system,
and everything was machined with aluminum.
We made custom tanks, custom motor covers,
custom blocks, it's fully engraved,
and it was a compete O-ring system,
no pipe threads on the system at all.
(mellow classic R&B music)
My car is called The Final Score.
I had purchased the car from a friend of mine.
When I purchased the car, it was a project.
It was gonna need complete body work from front to back.
It couldn't have been a project than what I took on,
but because of the car, because of the pricing,
it was something that I really wanted to get
and then take on that challenge.
Previously, I'd had a three-time
Lowrider of the Year Perfect Score,
1958 Impala hardtop.
When it was full retired, on the way home,
we had a accident where the car had gotten totaled,
so at that point in time,
everyone said, "Hey Chris, you know
"you built a great car in Perfect Score.
"Now you gotta outdo yourself,
"you gotta do The Final Score.
"You gotta build this car in name of the Perfect Score."
So that's when I finally said, "You know what?
"Let's do it."
The process of The Final Score was about four years.
During the four years,
everybody had a hand on getting this car done,
but the only time the car ever left my shop
was to get the paint.
Every other piece of that car was done in my garage.
The whole car was assembled at my shop.
The interior was put in at my shop.
It didn't leave and go to various shops all over
to have different people do stuff.
(melancholy piano music)
I was born in San Pablo, California.
My dad was a masters electrician,
and my mom was a stay-at-home mom.
My mom and dad split up
when I was probably about two years old,
and then it was just me and my mom for three or four years.
Then she had gotten remarried to my stepfather,
and that's when we moved to Vacaville, California.
So growing up, me and my dad's relationship was not strong.
I would see him maybe two, three times a year, holidays.
During the summer breaks,
I would go to my grandma's house
and stay there for a week at a time
and he would come visit.
You could only do what you could do
when you don't live with him.
But when he did start his electrical contracting business,
when I was eighteen,
he asked if I wanted to come work with him,
and that's really when our relationship started.
I got to really know him,
he got to really know me.
It was something that my life needed that I didn't have.
That was a nice time in my life to really get to know him.
It kinda helped fulfill that spot
that was missing.
I remember he'd always tell me, said,
"Chris, as soon as you graduate from your apprenticeship,
"I wanna semi-retire
"and I wanna start handing over the business to you.
"I want you to take over."
Him and a good friend were hunting out at Lake Berryessa.
They were on a real windy road
and the truck just went down 80, 90 feet
down an embankment.
Losing him during that time
when our relationship was getting to know each other,
instead of just folding the cards down,
I kept my head up,
I followed in his footsteps and his direction.
(slow inspirational music)
I had an advanced start before I got into the union.
So when I got into the union,
people were surprised how much that I actually knew
and what I can do.
I was 22 years old
when I started the electrical apprenticeship program.
It was a five-year program.
It was a great opportunity,
it was great learning experience.
The business was lost,
but I finished my schooling.
I'd had an offer on the table to run a business
for Fight Corporation,
so I've been general managing
Superior Electric now for 25 years.
I really enjoy the control side of the electrical work,
really thinking about how to make things work,
how to make things operate.
What I like to do is what I do,
and I've never stopped doing the electrical work
and I've never stopped doing the cars,
and it's just something I love to do
and I'ma keep doing it.
I think one of the biggest things
that I learned from my father
was just how to be a good worker,
how to be a smart worker.
I was very grateful that we got to fill that void
that I didn't get growing up,
but the biggest thing,
it was finding out about your dad.
My name is Chris Roark.
I'm a general manager at Superior Electric,
and I'm a Lowrider Roll Model.