Seven-time F1 champ Lewis Hamilton is known for going fast—he just podiumed last week in Montreal. But he’d never gone low ’n’ slow in a real lowrider. So last week, video crew in tow, he came to Los Angeles and met up with a local cruiser to check out a real, live lowrider. It’s not unprecedented. Ten years ago, Daniel Ricciardo came to LA and piloted Wild Child, a 1970 Monte Carlo lowrider from the Lifestyle Car Club all over the City of Angels—followed by driving Bruce Meyer’s ’32 Roadster down Rodeo Drive and an Aston Martin in the Malibu Hills.Lewis is a true car enthusiast. During the weekend of the Japanese Grand Prix in 2022, he was filmed night-driving and doing donuts in an R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R. His YouTube channel has videos of him driving all kinds of cool cars, piloting an offshore race boat in Miami followed by a Miami Vice-style drive in an ‘80s Testarossa, drifting an F40 in Tokyo, even riding a horse-like creature. Check it out here. But last week Hamilton was introduced to lowriding, getting behind the wheel of a 1984 Buick Regal, cruising over LA’s 6th Street Bridge to the sound of Snoop Dogg’s “Who Am I (What’s My Name?)”. “I’ve never seen one in person. I’ve just seen it all online,” Hamilton says to the car’s owner, LA DJ Vic Rosencranz, on-air talent at Power 106 FM. “With these low riders, what’s the... is it competition? Is it about the the artwork? Is it about the paint job?”He comes to Los Angeles and cruises low ’n’ slow over the 6th St. Bridge“It’s a combination,” says Rosencranz. “It’s the whole thing. It’s like, best car, best paint job. Obviously, it has the hydraulics.”Hydraulics are illegal in F1! So Lewis climbed inside and started hitting switches. “So, what do you, just press these and then it moves?”It does. The car jumps.“Whoa, ho, ho, that’s nuts!” says the champ.“Take it for a spin," Rosecrans says.“I’m down to take it for a spin,” says Hamilton.And off he goes. Imagine pulling up at a red light in LA and looking over to see Lewis Hamilton next to you cranking Snoop Dogg and hopping a Regal. That’d be fun.Lewis is now in Monaco, where he lives, driving much faster, but you can imagine he’s still thinking about that ’84 Buick and hitting those switches.
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