A lowrider or low rider is a customized car with a lowered body that emerged in the post-WWII, 1940s‍–1950s era. The exact origin of the lowrider is debatable, but it was probably birthed in Southern California, with many people claiming that lowriders really started in Tijuana, Texas, or New Mexico. Lowriders were particularly popular amongst young Chicanos, who adopted the art of rolling “low and slow” (or bajito y suavecito), directly opposing mainstream culture which focused on fast cars such as hot rods. In lowrider culture, lowriders are considered to serve as transportation art or transported art.

Lowrider also refers to the driver of the car and their participation in lowrider car clubs, which remain a part of Chicano culture and have since expanded internationally. These customized vehicles are also artworks, generally being painted with intricate, colorful designs, unique aesthetic features, and rolling on wire-spoke wheels with whitewall tires.

Lowrider rims are generally smaller than the original wheels. They are often fitted with hydraulic systems that allow height adjustable suspension, allowing the car to be lowered or raised by switch. From 1958 to 2023, the California Vehicle Code made lowriding illegal, which was ultimately criticized as unnecessary and discriminatory toward Chicano and broader Latin American culture.

Lowrider car culture began in Southern California, in the mid-to-late 1940s, and grew during the post-war prosperity of the 1950s within Mexican-American youth culture. Conversion of standard production vehicles included adding lowering blocks and cut-down spindles, reduced-length suspension spring coils, and creating "Z frames" from stock straight frames.^{[citation needed]} The purpose of lowriders, as their motto "Low and Slow" suggests, is to cruise as slowly and as smoothly as possible.

Section 24008 of the California Vehicle Code went into effect on January 1, 1958, prohibiting cars modified to shift the vehicle body lower than the bottoms of its wheel rims. In 1959, mechanic Ron Aguirre bypassed the law by installing hydraulics that could quickly toggle the height of a General Motors X-frame chassis.

Lowriding became widely popular in the 1980s and 1990s, and bans were enacted in many California cities. It regained popularity a little in 2009, then significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In the 2020s, activists argued that the practice was harmless and banning it was simply the result of prejudice against Mexican-Americans. San Jose and Sacramento repealed their bans in 2022 that had been enacted in 1986 and 1988, respectively. In 2022, the California State Assembly unanimously passed a resolution urging all remaining cities with bans (including National City, which banned it in 1992) to repeal them. In 2023, California rescinded state restrictions on the height of vehicle bodies and superseded local regulations against cruising. National City repealed its ban on cruising in April 2023.

In 2020, police in Albuquerque, New Mexico introduced a lowrider police car in a reversal of the city's anti-lowriding policies.

In 1959, a customizer named Ron Aguirre developed a way of bypassing the law with the use of hydraulic Pesco pumps and valves that allowed him to change ride height at the flick of a switch. He developed this modification with help from his father, after conceiving of the idea. Aguirre's motivation was to stop being targeted with traffic tickets, as he had been by local police in his city of Rialto, California after the statewide ban was enacted.