(upbeat music)
- [Man] My dad suggested paint it black, paint it green,
or painted pink.
So, there's no way I'm going to paint the are black.
There's too many of those.
I don't like green and what the grown man
wants a pink Impala?
And, I knew how passionate he was about that.
And so I, I made it my mission to
seek out that color, that was made back in the 1970s
by my dad and a friend of his.
I never seen the color, but the,
there's a color that they made.
It was on a 1963 Impala.
We spent a lot of time, trying to figure out this color.
We had 57,
spray outs.
And 57 was the closest.
And, when we got to 58, we knew we hit it on the head.
We were able to show this color
to some family members.
And immediately when they saw it, they were overjoyed like,
Oh my God, that's the color your dad always talked about.
And I knew, just in tears, that, we hit a home run.
And, that's how we wound up with it,
and now I own a, pink 64, named Concrete Rose.
(upbeat music)
I have a 1964 Impala Super Sport.
All the engraving is done by, Crazy Cutting.
Has four pumps, eight batteries, hydrauls are done
by About That Life Hydraulics.
Full Chrome suspension.
Has a three twenty seven, fully engraved engine.
Has a custom interior done
by RNR Designs.
It's mixed with leather and suede.
Has a custom door panels, with LED lighting on the top.
(indistinct)
Has a custom center console with
digital Alpine EQ.
Has pioneer stereo, cup holder.
My digital dash is actually custom made.
It's not your typical digital dash that, you just purchased.
This is actually made with, round digital gauges.
So it gives a car real sleek look.
Also have a, I did a tilt column,
which is chromed.
Beginning to be pretty popular in a low-rider world,
these Chrome tilt columns.
I kept the original steering wheel because,
it's more of a sentimental thing with my father and I.
So it has a nice pink steering wheel,
a little bit of engraving, just to kind of set the interior
off.
All the interior trims are, actually engraved.
The seat trims are engraved, all done by Crazy Cutting.
And it gives it a, a wild look on the inside.
Still trying to maintain a subtle look on the outside.
(upbeat music)
- [Man] My mom is an immigrant from the Philippines.
Her and my dad were actually pen pals.
My Mom worked the clerk's air force base.
My Dad, spent some time, part of the black Panthers group.
And, my Dad, he knew that he,
this was the woman that he wanted to marry.
So he said, I'm coming to Philippines to get you.
And he went to the Philippines, asked her parents
for her hand.
And they agreed.
He brought her back to the United States in 1974.
Solely after that, the family started.
I have a younger brother and a younger sister.
And, I don't think she knew what she was getting
into in regards to the low rider scene.
In 1975, she was pregnant with myself.
And in April of 1975, she was jumped, by about five people.
And, that was something my father couldn't let go.
And he felt like he let her down.
So unfortunately he, found the people who did it
and,
he made decisions that,
would take them out of our lives, for 31 years.
And, my brother was actually born while my father was gone.
He got incarcerated in 1980,
and my brother was born in July of 1980.
So, my father had to parent from a distance,
while he was gone.
And I remember in the very early ages,
starting in 1982, he would send me letters.
And in those letters,
he would say how I would have to be the man
of the house.
But also in those letters,
he also reminded me that, the love that we have
for cars.
I remember being early age four or five,
going to his car club meetings,
seeing pictures, even now, you know,
it still amaze me.
But in those letters, he would take cars
out of magazine, and he would cut the tires,
and then tape them up into the car
so it looked like low riders.
And he did that from, maybe the young age
of six or seven
till I was about 15, in the middle of 1990.
And it was always something that we were going to do.
Growing up in South central, you actually grow up
around two things that are quite popular.
One being low riding
and the other one being gang-banging.
You really had no choice.
And, if you weren't going to do that,
then you weren't going to be anybody.
And, my mom, decided that she wanted to move us
to hopefully a better area.
Which would be the San Fernando Valley.
And, being brought up around, cars and seeing the gang life,
I couldn't stray from either one.
I knew I wanted to do the cars,
but I was so attracted to the gang life.
So at the age of 15,
I joined the Crips in the San Fernando Valley.
And it was difficult because,
having the same passion today, that I have
as a low rider,
that passion actually stems from being a gang banger.
So, in a sense, it's almost like low riding saved my life.
Because, I knew I wasn't going to be around much longer.
I had faced prison time multiple times.
And, if you can't take a step back,
from what you know is going to kill you,
how are you ever going to move forward
from what possibly save your life?
And, I said,
I have to take a step back from this.
It was about 1992.
My grandmother had passed
and the family decided they were going to sell her house.
So, my dad's called one day from prison
and said, you know, I want to get you a low rider.
You have to promise us, stay in school, graduate.
Unfortunately, when you give a child
an extended amount of money, to buy a car,
it's not always the best decision.
I went out and bought a 1984 Cadillac coupe Deville.
I wrote him a letter
and told them about it, send them a picture.
He was overjoyed.
I think he just cared that I was able to
continue on what he wanted to do.
That's why this has always been,
even more a passion of mine.
In hindsight, he loved that first build, as bad as it was.
And I don't mean bad meaning good.
(man laughs)
It was in 1997, the Majestics opened their arms to me and,
my attraction to the club stemmed from 1996.
And what I saw was something that, I always gravitated
to being a biracial individual.
Hispanics and Blacks and Samoans, Caucasians,
all in low riders.
And it wasn't about who was
in the front of the line, who was in the back of the line.
One thing I noticed was all the cars were equally clean.
They're all bad-ass, and they all have majestic plaques.
So when I got the invite,
there was no way in the world
I was going to miss that opportunity.
So, big Don took my car home, and he got my car running
and took it to his house in, in Palmdale, Lancaster.
And he got the car out.
In a matter of five/six months,
I had my very first majestic car.
And it was painted.
Again, it wasn't the best paint job
or better than my very first paint job.
And, the Majestics opened our arms to me.
And, you know, they made me feel
like this is the group I wanted to belong to.
And, I've been there ever since, since 1997.
In 2015, I debuted my very first Impala.
It was about a two year build.
A good friend of mine, Louis O,
built a car from the bottom up.
And, building an Impala is not easy.
And my dad always told me that.
So not listening to him, I took my own route.
I built it.
I was able to debut it in 2015.
So, I was going to a toy drive in Antioch, California,
and the axle snapped, at about 50 miles per hour.
And the car swerved.
I lost control the car,
hit an embankment and the car launched two feet to the air.
And I went straight into the, retaining wall.
And.
At that moment I knew, my life was over.
I knew I was going to die.
And I remember turning in my seat,
and I said, God, I'm not ready.
After I was able to get out of the hospital,
and begin the healing process,
one of the first things my dad said to me,
after he asked if I was okay,
a hundred times,
he says, you're going to build another 64?
I Told him, of course.
Fresh off my injuries, drove out to Utah,
told my dad I'm going to pick up a 64 Super Sport.
And the first thing I told him was,
that Imma paint this car the same color.
He said no.
He said, you crazy.
I said Imma paint this car yellow.
And he says, why do you want to paint it that color?
And I said, because, I said a little rider magazine
said they wanted to do a centerfold on this.
So, I'm going to give them what they want.
Everybody loves this color combination of yellow and gray.
And he says, no, that's bad Juju.
I didn't care what he said.
I was going to do it.
So I just didn't tell him that.
I went along with his ideas.
He said let's chrome the floorboards, let's, let's chrome
the exhausts, let's do this.
So with this build I have now,
a lot of the, ideas are his.
And, that November, he got sick
and so his health started deteriorating.
We didn't think much of it.
We just said, well, you know, he'll be able to shake it off.
He's a strong man.
And come, February, he got rushed to the hospital.
And so I knew, something was up.
I didn't stop the build.
I told the painter proceed,
we're going to get this done.
Coz I wanted, I wanted to please him.
I wanted him to see this new build.
Late February, the doctor said,
we need to start, maybe making preparations
because they said he has slipped into a coma
and he was on a respirator.
So I went to go see him,
and I'm talking to him,
and I knew, I said, he's going to pull out of this.
There's no way, he's going to pull out of this,
he's going to be fine.
And he did.
When he did, I remember my wife feeding him.
When he got done eating, he was just, how's the car?
I said, it's good Pop, I said, it's good.
You're gonna like it.
And he says, okay.
He says, what color you gonna to paint it?
And I, I couldn't tell him, I had already painted it yellow.
He says,
soon as I get out of here, we need to get on that.
I need you to bring it down here.
So I said, okay, dad, no problem.
I told him, I said, all right Pop.
I said, Imma go ahead and head back home.
Kids got school tomorrow.
I said, I'll be back Thursday,
when they transfer you to your next hospital.
That Thursday, I got a phone call at 12:10.
And they told me that,
they said that his heart couldn't take it no more.
And he passed away of heart failure.
When I walked out to the hospital room,
the last thing he said to me was, when you come back,
bring me pictures of my four.
I said, okay Pop, I love you.
The first thing he gave me in life, was my love of cars.
And the last thing he said to me,
was about our love for cars.
So, he never knew I painted it yellow.
After my dad passed away, I, I lost complete motivation.
I didn't want to build another Impala.
I did, I didn't want this one.
Our plan was to always build a car together.
And, I didn't feel that I was honoring him,
by painting the car, yellow,
and he'd not known about it.
So, a good friend of mine, by the name of Z ,says,
you're slacking.
You need to build this car.
And I said, I can't, I can't do it this color.
He says, I want to come and get the car,
but we're going to figure this out.
So, eventually, it led to the story,
I told him about the 63, that, my dad always spoke of.
And he says, well, let's make it.
Several months later, actually the following year,
I was in New Mexico,
and there was a low rider magazine show.
And I ran into the guys from Crazy Cutting.
And, they are, an engraving finished product company.
And they actually offered me a job.
It says, but ultimately man,
we want to be able to, do something for you.
You do a lot for this lifestyle.
They got with, one of my closest friends in life,
Demac of the Compton Majestics, my wife, Alex Rodriguez.
And, they conspired to do a mural,
inside the trunk, as a tribute to my father.
So in the mural, is a picture of,
the last picture that my father and I took,
was that my 40th birthday.
It was a surprise party, that my members threw for me.
The very first picture of my mom came from the Philippines,
standing with my dad's 64, that's in the mural.
But then the hardship of him being in prison for 31 years,
which is a prison tower in the mural.
His Riviera was in the mural.
And then, in the backdrop,
there's a boat sailing on the water.
And to me, that is the most significant part,
of that mural because,
one of his favorite songs is sailing, by Christopher Cross.
And the song talks about how,
your mind is always free.
I know he's free.
And I know that, we're still connected by that song.
The song was so significant because, he always said,
the reason why he loves that song,
is because he knew, wherever we were,
if that song was on, if we liked it,
and we listened to it,
that was his connection to us, which was music.
When the mural got done, my wife and Demac
and everyone,
they knew that that would be so significant.
It's emotional at times.
I just want to get in the car,
turn on my dad's favorite song.
I just want to ride.
No destination.
Just, feeling the movement of the car.
Just knowing that, that was his vision.
This is what he talked about,
when he told my mom and his mom that,
he wanted to be in the magazine with just the baddest car.
I think about all those things.
There's no feeling that I can,
it's impossible to describe.
Overall, it's attributed to him, to utilize his,
his ideas, his passions for the lifestyle.
Even though, he really didn't care too much
for, the way we do it now.
He was a seventies low rider.
But, there's no way I can describe it, other than emotional.
And that's whether I'm by myself,
or with my brothers.
There's a love that, is out this world.
When I got what the Majestics,
I was a very aggressive low-rider.
There wasn't, any day of the week that you would
catch me driving my car,
or any picnic or function.
And, by doing so,
they looked at me as maybe, I should become a leader.
After about eight months in this San Fernando chapter,
I became president.
And I've maintained a president status, since 1998
into the Majestics, till now.
In 2011, I moved from San Fernando chapter as the president,
to Sacramento.
That was the only time I actually stepped down
from president, because it was difficult
to president of the chapter, from 350 miles away.
So I did a fundraiser in 2015, to actually start my chapter.
That was our start.
We were going to start this majestic chapter
by doing a fundraiser.
And so we did, with my ambition and just die hard passion
for the Majestics.
Not just so much low riding,
but just for the Majestics.
I think the members recognized that,
and they were comfortable with me becoming
a national president.
It's a difficult role but,
you can showcase that you care about, the community
of the Majestics and not so much the individual in it.
I think it'll take you a lot further
than what you want to be.
You have to be a team player.
Having 40 chapters across the world, is a great deal to me.
I've started some of those chapters internationally,
as well as here in the States.
When you can go just about anywhere in the world,
and know that there's Majestics there,
you know that you've done something right,
or the leaders before you, have done something right.
And I've been fortunate enough to follow the footsteps
of good leaders, and learn from their successes,
learn from their failures,
and ultimately put my own spin on it.
And I think that's what makes China Man
the majestic and low rider that I am.
If I'm in a position of leadership,
I want to be in a position of leadership
to make things better for all of us.
Being in a San Fernando chapter for so many years,
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to give back.
And, again, I was an aggressive low rider.
I was the guy that was blocking traffic,
(indistinct)
hopping, you name it.
And as I got older, now being a father,
your responsibility level changes.
And one of the biggest things, that I always commend
low riders on,
is we do these toy drives, all throughout California,
the low-rider community period across the United States.
And, that means a lot to me because,
I was one of those kids.
One of my, most sentimental memories is,
I received a huge fire truck, as a kid.
And it wasn't that my mom didn't love it.
She just didn't have the means.
So, I wanted to give back
to those same programs because, I know what that kid feels.
And I know what it's like, to not have toys for Christmas.
I know what it's like after, you actually have to go down
to a program and for some stranger to hand you a toy.
My name is China Man.
I am a legal representative,
and I am a low rider role model.
(upbeat music)