For the first time since California decriminalized lowrider cruising earlier this year, San Francisco’s annual Kings of the Street car show rolled through the Palace of Fine Arts before heading to the Mission in what organizers bill as the biggest cruise in the U.S.
For Roberto Hernandez, Saturday’s event showcasing 2,000 classic cars was surreal considering how marginalized the subculture was when he founded the San Francisco Lowrider Council more than four decades ago.
“For me, it’s a dream come true to do it at the Palace of Fine Arts,” he said. “I know 30 years ago, 40 years ago, they would never let us be here.”
Times certainly have changed.
For generations, the largely Latino lowriders enthusiasts were racially profiled by police, Hernandez recounted. Then, in 1979, a group of them sued San Francisco, which culminated in an agreement to let the cars cruise along Mission Street.
Since then, lowrider culture has expanded across the globe.
“Now, lowriders are in movies, they’re in commercials,” Hernandez said.
Locally, he said he’s heartened to see the car culture embraced as part of the city’s identity, making appearances in major events like the Golden State Warriors championship parade.
Mother-daughter duo Tristessa Branco and Nevaeh Branco joined fellow car enthusiasts on Saturday to show off their gleaming 1962 Impala. The elder Branco said when she grew up, lowriders were a male-dominated fixation.
“I like that more women are out there,” Tristessa said. “We’re showing ’em that we can do it, too.”
While the younger Branco preferred last year’s venue at the Embarcadero to the Palace of Fine Arts, she said it started growing on her as the day wore on.
“It’s different,” she said. “I’m getting used to it.”
That organizers mix up the location every year is part of the fun, said Jerry Griego, a former president of the SF Lowrider Council and, at 68, the self-described “oldest lowrider in San Francisco.”
“It’s always good to have something different, man,” the San Francisco native said while standing beside his 1963 Lincoln Continental drop-top painted in a hue he called Inverness green. “Sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s not so better. … But some people love it, I’m sure, and some people don’t.”
Unlike last year, when the sun shone for the better part of the car show, the fog obscured the bay in the background.
But Robert Peña — who brought a 1967 Camaro Rally Sport for what marked his sixth time at the event — said he was hoping the sky would brighten up enough to glint off the impeccably polished cars and give everyone a nice view of the Bay Bridge.
“We had it for 20 minutes,” he said with a laugh. “I should’ve taken a picture then.”
