24 May 2005 by: Liz Scarff


Queens, New York: The buffed-up candy orange convertible pulls up alongside a grubby green family station wagon. As the car comes to a standstill so do the spinning engraved chrome and 24-carat gold wheel rims. The bass is booming from the gold amp in the boot and the sun ricochets off the engraved chrome and gold air tanks. Such ostentatious bling on the block has passers-by scrambling for their camera phones. "What is it?" one guy drawls. At the flick of a switch the car hisses loudly and its body judders downwards.

'Hooked-up' rides, as they're known, are big in this neighbourhood. "Everybody has a Honda, so you gotta take it to another level," explains Gopie Ramsook, the car's owner. "How much of the original Honda is actually left?" Gopie pauses, his eyes drift upwards for a moment, "Um... the dash," he laughs. "Those rims cost $5,800 - they're the only ones in the United States."


Gopie Ramsook has spent over $100,000 on his Honda Accord
Ramsook is a member of 'Low Mentality', a lowrider car club based in Queens, New York. Club members chop, weld, upholster, chrome and gild their cars until they're the ultimate in excess. His car started life as a $2500 four-door 1994 Honda Accord. Over one hundred thousand dollars worth of customisations later, it's a two-door convertible with scissor doors, a DVD player, opulent upholstered interior and a Lexus front-end. Old school hydraulics have been passed over in favour of an pneumatic set-up with three chrome and gold engraved air tanks visibly mounted behind the rear seats. Gopie is a man that likes to engrave everything - that includes his gold-plated gear lever.

"It's like crack," observes another club member, "once you start you want more and more." And like crack, it's an expensive habit: most of these cars are pushing the $100,000 mark.

the ARTICLE is here