- I really had no other choice.
I just kept moving forward
'cause I didn't really know what else to do.
That's the only thing I've ever known
like the back of my hand.
I had to follow that to find my way back to society.
I have a 1966 Chevrolet Impala.
It's got a 327 engine that been bored out one time.
Built the entire engine myself.
I have a 350 turbo transmission with a shift kit,
handlebar carburetor and manifold.
I have a beefed up radiator made to look stock.
I have a sunroof, shaved door handles,
dechromed parts of the car.
Sansiba sheened warren ring in the center
of the steering wheel made out of aluminum.
Full custom interior with a waterfall
that's handmade out of metal.
Full stereo.
I have four bucket seats, handmade, custom upholstery,
all in suede and marine vinyl.
Full trunk, upholstered, etc.
A lot of chrome on every single piece on the car.
I have 13-inch 88-spoke Dayton wire wheels
with a two prong knock up.
Running 520 premium sport tires on the car
with thin whitewalls.
I'm running two pumps, front and back,
just for a lifted laying.
I have four batteries.
I have eight-inch cylinders all the way around,
and two switches.
The name of my car is Psychotic Pineapple.
It's named after a punk rock band out of
northern California.
The car is done is a old flake, not the largest flake
but just one below it, so it has sort of a slightly
different sparkle.
And it's all done in caddies and see throughs,
and it's 14 shades.
And there's like a canopy top on the roof that slides down,
and it changes pink from green to orange,
and then it turns into another color, just flows through.
There's a pineapple on the trunk in pinstripe.
Between the color combination and the pineapple kind of
giving it a 1950's look, but the car is really sort of a
late '60's, early '70's custom feel.
(industrial rock music)
The first time I seen a low rider I believe it was 1974,
and it was a '65 Impala with Cregor rims, deep dish,
and it had low profile tires, and that car stopped me
dead in my tracks.
I mean it was like mesmerizing, and it was something that
just clicked inside me, and after that I was hooked.
I mean it was just a basic car.
I have always liked cars my entire life,
and I had wanted a '66 Impala since I was in high school.
So I called a friend, and he goes,
"I know somebody who's got one."
And knocked on his door and said,
"Hey, I know you have that car",
and he says, "It's not for sale."
And then I offered him some money,
and I got the car for $2,500.
Took me 10 years to build it.
The car is really an expression of myself,
just like most cars are an expression of their owners.
My car is really like a piece of art to me.
Everybody says that, but I really put
all my DNA into the car.
I just couldn't part with my own blood.
I was born and raised in San Jose, California.
I think I was born a gear head.
I was born to like thing that move.
My parents, Joe and Marcy, they both lived in Arizona,
and they were born there.
And both their families migrated to San Jose,
to follow the fields, to follow the crops.
And they both met here in San Jose.
My dad had already got his first, you know,
custom car, lowered to the ground and everything,
and then they met in front of this night club.
After that, you know, they started the family,
they got married, they got married in that custom car.
I have an older brother, Robert,
younger than me is my younger brother, Marty.
Then I have my younger sister,
everybody would call her Pelona.
My dad had been a barber his entire life,
and at one point he had his own barber shop,
and he would always cut our hair.
My mother was a seasonal cannery worker
and that was also one of the industries
that was large in San Jose at the time.
As a child I really wasn't into sports,
I was the guy that you didn't want on your team,
'cause I didn't know anything.
It was just this love of cars,
which turned into art, 'cause I was just
obsessively drawing cars and vehicles,
or motorcycles, or something.
That love of cars and vehicles,
that got me into college.
It's been a long haul for me, as far as being an artist.
When I finished college, I wasn't sure what to do,
as I was doing picture framing, working sort of,
slightly related to the arts.
There are some unfortunate times,
I ended becoming homeless.
I still had a job, luckily, I wasn't sure what to do,
so I stayed at work on a little couch for a few days.
Moving home was failure to me.
I just refused to do that.
I was determined to continue making my art.
Eventually I stayed with a friend and then
I started to do what I do now.
I started doing artwork for people, I started small and,
I got there and from there I jumped into a warehouse,
a 4200 square foot warehouse.
And it was all about the art,
I couldn't give up on making my art.
I don't know if you would call it a dream,
it was mostly a desire, or a path that I was meant to take.
I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
(low beat music)
Technically I do two things in art.
I have my personal art, which I'll show in galleries
from time to time and if you would go to a show
and see my work they'd be all cars,
but they're really stories of my life
and preserving the Lowrider culture,
preserving Chicano culture, and kind of combine those two.
My personal art, I paint on wooden canvases,
I just like a firm surface and I tend to paint,
as far as the subject matter,
I couldn't get away from the lowriders my entire life,
I finally gave in to it.
So I paint the lowriders and then
I overlay them with various objects that reference
parts of my life, parts of cultures I wanna preserve,
and tell a story.
Over the years I mainly display them in galleries
and various, you know, small museums, etc.
I often, these days, wait until I get a commission,
which people call up and say,
"Hey, I want one of your paintings", you know,
"Can you paint it for me?".
And of course, all that money goes straight back into my car
or my new car, a 1971 Grand Prix.
I'm from Hightone Car Club, out of San Jose, California.
I am also the president of the Club,
and the Hightone name is a reference to my father.
When he grew up in the fifties,
he would refer to people that looked really nice,
really nice hair, or had a really sharp ride,
they'd say, "Oh, that's really high tone".
You know, something really nice,
really sharp going down the street, it's hightone.
My parents were pretty proud,
they supported me doing any kind of art.
My mom died just before I got married,
'cause she had liver cancer,
but a little over a decade later, my father passed.
And that hit me just as hard.
I painted a big painting that week before he was buried,
his car that they got married
in this '56 Chevy that's lowered with a,
the Appleton lights and show pipes,
and I put his big signature on it,
and we had it next to his casket.
And I realized I was just like him.
I didn't know that until he died.
When there's a lot of people that, you know,
come to me and tell me about their art
and I would love to do what I do,
I tell them, just keep drawing, I go,
that's all I ever did, was I just drew every single day.
It's almost like I didn't have a choice,
it was just part of my DNA to keep going.
I would just say never give up on your dreams.
It's really important, they see what I've done,
I know that they're gonna say,
"Hey, look at him, he's just like us,
"he looks like my uncle, he looks like my dad,
"and I'm gonna be like that one day."
I want all this young people to know that
if I can accomplish my goals, and my dreams, they can too.
My name is Marcos Gaitan, I am an artist,
and I love Lowrider Roll models.