Slammedenuff is a stance show, built around lowered cars with perfect wheel fitment. So it says something that one of the cars everybody crowded around in 2023 was a lowrider that spends half its time in the air. Meet Lucifer, a candy purple Chevrolet Monte Carlo, filmed in 4K in a car park off the Parkway after dark.
The show
Slammedenuff Gatlinburg 2023 ran on 30 September and 1 October 2023 at the Sevierville Convention Center, keeping the Gatlinburg name the show made famous. As always, the real party continued after dark in the car parks along the road to the mountains, under the drop towers and the big wheel.
Source: Pigeon Forge Chamber: Slammedenuff, October 2023.
The car
This is a fourth-generation Monte Carlo, the boxy 1981–1988 car that GM moved onto its rear-drive G-body platform. Body-on-frame, rear-wheel drive and V8-friendly, the G-body became one of the favourite starting points for lowriders. Lucifer wears deep candy purple with a metal-flake sparkle, a pinstriped trunk lid and roof, purple-lit headlights and a Unique Styles plaque in the rear window. It sits on wire wheels with whitewall tyres.
Source: Wikipedia: Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
Hitting switches
Hydraulics are what make a lowrider a lowrider. Batteries feed electric motors and pumps that push fluid into a cylinder at each corner; a switch box in the driver's hand decides which corner goes up, and a "dump" lets it back down. More batteries in series mean more voltage, faster motors and bigger hops, which is why serious hoppers carry a boot full of batteries and a reinforced frame. The idea goes back to 1959, when Ron Aguirre fitted aircraft pumps and valves to his car in California.
In the video Lucifer lifts its nose, drops its tail, and finally stands on three wheels with one front wheel hanging in the air, while the crowd films from every side.
Sources: Speedhunters: The Science Of Hitting Switches and Wikipedia: Lowrider.
A year later
When we came back for the 2024 edition, a candy purple G-body with the same pinstriped trunk and Unique Styles plaque was at the gas-station meets again. We're fairly sure it's the same car.
See the rest of that night in Gatlinburg Gas Stations by Night, and meet the V8 Silvia from the same 2023 car park in Evil Silvia.
Video: One Breath Pictures.
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