U.S. Postal Service Issues SoCal Lowrider Culture Stamps

This is a post for all of you car-loving philatelists out there. The United States Post Office, starting this past Friday reports the Los Angeles Times, is issuing a new collection of lowrider stamps, and they go so frickin’ hard. Rooted in 1940s Mexican-American culture across the American Southwest, but widely associated with the Los Angeles area, lowriders are among the coolest sets of car enthusiasts on earth. These vehicles transcend their simple mechanical bounds and not only developed a community of modified car owners, but when done right, can ascend to the ranks of true artwork. You might think you keep your car clean and you know every inch of it by memory, but the lowrider guys take that to a whole new degree. 

Each stamp plate comes with fifteen “Forever” stamps, three each of five different designs. Five extremely different lowriders were chosen for the project, including a blue 1958 Chevrolet Impala named “Eight Figures,” an orange 1964 Chevrolet Impala named “the Golden Rose,” a green 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme named “Pocket Change,” a blue 1946 Chevrolet Fleetline named “Let the Good Times Roll/Soy Como Soy,” and a red 1963 Chevrolet Impala named “El Rey.” 

This collection was developed by USPS art director Antonio Alcalá. It was Alcalá’s collaboration with Beto Mendoza and Danny Alvarado that really brought these stamps to life, however. Mendoza, the editor in chief of Centerfoldz Magazine, provided photography of each of the cars in the collection, while pinstriper Alvarado provided custom color-matched flourishes to each stamp to provide additional eye-catching beauty and bring his own flavor to the traditional design. 

It seems like almost everything the government is doing right now is aimed at making life worse and less stable for average Americans, but this is a tiny scrap of cool happening in a sea of bad. 

Lowrider culture is such an important part of Americana that frequently gets overlooked or glossed over, but I would argue that there isn’t anyone in the car world who cares about their car as much as these folks do. The attention to detail and depths to which these folks are willing to go in order to make their car fit the vision are second to none. They say cleanliness is next to godliness, but even God’s car isn’t as crisp as your average low and slow enthusiast. 

For over forty years the state of California banned “lowriding” with laws barring any parts of the car from extending below the wheel rim. With AB 436, which went into effect on January 1, 2024, California overturned the lowrider ban. It’s nice to see this community recognized, even in a relatively insignificant manner as being depicted on postage stamps. Even still, it’s a nice touch from the USPS and I look forward to getting a couple sheets, one to use on mail and one to stick in a frame. Each design can also be purchased as a keychain. 

“ I’m gonna buy my stamps, but I’m never giving ’em away,” Jovita Arellano, president of the United Lowrider Coalition told the LA Times. “ I wanna keep ’em, they’re forever for me. That’s our lifestyle. So to have a forever stamp, it just signifies that we are lowriders forever.”

I was something of a stamp collector myself when I was a youngster, but haven’t bought a sheet in quite a few years. This totally awesome sheet is going to make me walk to the post office at the end of the street and re-start my collection. I’m sure it probably won’t spiral out of control like it did last time.