30/09/2025
The Untold Black Roots of Lowrider Culture
How Berta & Charles “Big Red” Bell, Athen Nelson, and Sonny Sims Shaped an American Original
By Dwann Brown — Incense & Ashtrays
The myth vs. the receipts
Magazine covers and movie montages taught the world to picture lowriders through a single frame: East L.A. murals, chrome spokes, boulevard nights. That’s real—but it isn’t the whole story. Follow the paper trail, the oral histories, and the builders who actually cut frames and plumbed hydraulics, and a different origin snaps into place: the name, the first “Low Riders” club, and the signature moves came out of Black Los Angeles in the 1950s and ’60s.
At the center is Charles “Big Red” Bell, who organized a club that called itself the Low Riders in 1952, and his wife Berta Bell, who—by her own first-person account—coined the term “low rider” in 1955. Two years later, on May 30, 1957, the California Eagle printed “Low Riders” in black and white, identifying Charles Bell as club president—the earliest known use of the term in the press.
“Give Berta her flowers. She named the culture. Charles organized the crew. Sonny Sims made the first car hop. Athen Nelson pulled the first three-wheel. These are the receipts.”
The cut men, the corners, the science
To really understand how lowriding became lowriding, you have to talk to a cut man—the folks who literally cut and set up the cars. In a recent sit-down, legendary builder Athen Nelson (a.k.a. “the Cut-Man”) laid out a living blueprint of the early scene:
Starting the craft: He got “affiliated” around 1959–60, and by 1967 he was cutting cars in earnest—one of the youngest in the game alongside his friend Ernest House Jr. (“we were like brothers… people thought we were competition, but we just did our own thing”).
Where it went down: Sundays rolled through Church’s Chicken, Taco Lita (Venice & Western), Firestone & Central, Broadway & Florence, McDonald’s in Compton, Zorba’s, the Dixie Club, World on Wheels, and parking lots where crews would hop against each other.
Who he touched: Athen says he cut Freeway Rick’s first car, worked with Tommy from Super Naturals, and “taught a lot of people how to do this work”—some admit it, some don’t.
How the tech evolved:
Early on, you bought a Palleys “hook-up” for $25, then hand-made cups and cleaned the struts to fit your car.
He and other originals developed cups and methods; Carl Watson became known for T-Birds and Eldorados; Ernest House excelled at Fords, Chevys, Cutlasses.
Before electric dumps, riders pulled rip cords to drop the car; later, Cal Custom door-popper solenoids got repurposed as dumps.
Airborne/Cal Nelson started selling purpose-built solenoid dumps—Athen remembers buying square dumps for $12 and tops for $7.50 back then, long before prices hit the stratosphere.
A technician named Clyde (brother to Sam at Palleys) schooled him on hose flow, gear ratios, and turnaround—the fine points that make a car hop right.
Front/Back to Full Travel: At first, many cars were set up front or back only. Once a few started dragging the rear, everyone raced to cut the other end—ushering in the front-and-back era.
And then there are the firsts. Athen’s memory hits a familiar chord:
The first lowrider: “His name was Charles Bell. His brother’s name was Chino Bell.”
The first front-and-back setup: Mid-1950s, on an old Ford by an unnamed Black builder.
The practical spark: Aircraft junkyards supplied cylinders and parts; the first lifts were for driveways and ramps—including a Jaguar at the Coliseum Lowrider Super Show that needed help getting up the incline.
The takeoff: Around 1967, Sonny Sims “put a few batteries in it, weighted it,” and started the hop game. From there, it “took off into what it is today.”
“A lot of people claim they invented things,” Athen says, “but Sonny Sims got everybody hopping. That’s the truth.”
(Note: Oral histories differ on naming; Athen credits Chino Bell with “putting the name on it,” while Berta Bell—Charles’s widow—says she coined “low rider” in 1955. What’s indisputable is that the Bell family is at the root.)
Setting the record straight
This does not diminish the role of Latino communities, nor Black communities in San Diego, Oakland, and beyond. They have a story too, and their contributions are undeniable and essential to the growth of lowrider culture.
But the receipts say this: the first crew to call themselves “Low Riders” and the earliest print usage of the term are in Los Angeles, tied to Charles “Big Red” Bell. The moves that define the look—hopping and three-wheel motion—track through Black Angelenos like Sonny Sims and Athen Nelson. The car of record—the ’64 Impala—and the soundtrack that carried the style worldwide are rooted in Black American music and Black LA fashion.
“The culture the world imitates—the ’64s, the tilt, the hop, the khakis and creases—comes out of Black Los Angeles.”
The soundtrack that proves the lineage
Cultures carry their music. Lowriding rolled to Black American soundtracks—doo-wop, sweet soul, R&B, funk—and then to West Coast hip-hop that turned neighborhood rituals into global imagery:
War’s “Low Rider” (anchored by Black saxophonist Charles Miller)
N.W.A.’s “Boyz-n-the-Hood” (“Cruisin’ down the street in my ’64”—a direct nod to the Impala)
Ice Cube’s “Today Was a Good Day” and Dr. Dre’s “Let Me Ride”, which put three-wheel motion and hopping on MTV and around the world
Even the uniform—baggy khakis, white tees, sharp creases—was 1980s Black LA street fashion, later adopted across Latino and Asian lowrider scenes.
The crackdown years
By the late ’80s and ’90s, Los Angeles turned celebration into citation. No-cruising zones ticketed drivers for passing the same point twice. Tilt, tint, and suspension became pretexts to pull folks over. Interiors got slashed “looking for drugs.” Meanwhile, auto-shop programs vanished from Black schools even as they persisted elsewhere, choking off a pipeline of young Black mechanics. California has since repealed anti-cruising bans statewide, but the damage to the ecosystem was real.
Timeline of receipts
1952: Charles “Big Red” Bell organizes the Low Riders (Los Angeles).
1955: Berta Bell coins “low rider” (first-person testimony).
1957: California Eagle names Charles Bell “Low Riders” club president—earliest known print.
1960s: Aircraft-surplus hydraulics adapted to street cars; Palleys/Airborne become parts hubs; early dumps and cups evolve.
1967: Sonny Sims kicks off hopping; Athen Nelson executes the first three-wheel motion.
1970s–’80s: Crenshaw Sundays, Black LA fashion, and “lowrider oldies” solidify the culture.
1990s: Hip-hop videos beam the look worldwide; ordinances criminalize cruising.
2000s–present: Latino and Asian clubs expand the scene globally; California reverses anti-cruising bans.
Why we have to tell it
This isn’t about excluding anyone—it’s about crediting origins. Black American creations too often get copied, commercialized, then erased. We watched it with funk and disco (rewritten as European chic), with myths that Caribbean culture “created” hip-hop (while erasing Black New Yorkers who birthed it), and even with how Black riders helped save Harley-Davidson and Cadillac—stories that rarely headline the retrospectives.
Lowriding is another page in that playbook. If we don’t document who/what/when/where, somebody else will—without us in it.
“Every time you hear ‘cruisin’ down the street in my ’64,’ you’re hearing Black LA’s lowrider legacy.”
Give the flowers
Berta Bell — for naming the culture.
Charles “Big Red” Bell — for organizing the first Low Riders.
Sonny Sims — for hopping.
Athen Nelson — for the first three-wheel and for teaching the science of the hop.
Lowriding isn’t just cars. It’s Black ingenuity on four wheels—born in Los Angeles, raised on our music, perfected by our hands, and copied around the world.
Notes & Sources (on record)
Primary oral histories: Berta Bell interview (Incense & Ashtrays); Athen Nelson — “Low Ridin 101 w/ Athen Nelson the Cut-Man Part 1.”
Primary document: California Eagle, May 30, 1957 (scan on file), earliest known print of “Low Riders,” naming Charles Bell as president.
Community memory: Cruising corridors (Crenshaw/Imperial, Firestone/Central, Broadway/Florence), Church’s/Taco Lita/World on Wheels, etc.
