Lowrider was founded in the mid-1970s by
San Jose State students Larry Gonzalez, Sonny Madrid, and David Nunez, "who sought to present a voice for the
Chicano community in the
Bay Area." In the early 1980s,
Lowrider also featured cartoonist
David Gonzales' monthly
comic strip The Adventures of Hollywood, which eventually morphed into the
Homies line of toy figurines. Even so, after being taken over by its printer,
Lowrider folded in December 1985. The magazine was revived in June 1988 by original co-founder Larry Gonzalez along with brothers Alberto and Lonnie Lopez. They moved the magazine's headquarters to
Fullerton, California (closer to the heart of lowrider culture), and began featuring customized trucks on the cover. As the magazine increased readership through the late 1980s and early '90s it spun off other titles, established a
merchandising division, and began sponsoring multi-annual lowrider shows which took place all over the Western U.S. Lowrider Publishing Group was acquired in 1997 by automotive periodicals conglomerate McMullen Argus Publishing, which was itself acquired in 1999 by PriMedia (now
Rent Group). In 2007,
Lowrider was taken over by
Source Interlink Media, now known as
TEN: The Enthusiast Network. == Offshoots ==