“The Lady Bugs came together in the early 1970’s, thanks to a few girls from Sun Valley, Echo Park, and East Los Angeles, California. The president and founder of the Lady Bugs, Stella Perez, used to go to Elysian Park on Sundays in hopes of recruiting girls to join the club before she headed to Whittier Boulevard for Sunday cruise night. Stella met the club’s future Vice President, Ruby Alexandra Beloz, during one of her recruitment trips to Elysian Park. They became good friends and would eventually see each other at Elysian Park and Whittier Boulevard every week. Inevitably, Ruby was asked to join the club and become the Vice President. The only problem; Ruby owned a Ford Pinto. When Ruby mentioned this to Stella, Stella’s response was, “Yeah, but it’s a cool looking Pinto and you will be the mascot!” Unbeknownst to them at the time, Stella and Ruby were creating Lowrider history as the first all-Chicana female car club.
The young ladies in the club all came from different backgrounds. Most of them had jobs, and some were going to college full time, working towards earning their secondary degrees. There were also single mothers and other members were engaged to members of the male car clubs. At the peak of Lady Bugs’ membership, there were about 68 members including the shotgun riders. With that many members, the club’s leadership structure had to be organized, disciplined, and consistent.
The club’s government came up with a list of requirements for membership. The vehicle had to be a Beetle; and if the member did not have a Beetle, they were required to be shotgun rider for a member with a Beetle. The car had to be kept clean at all times, and the plaque was not to be left unattended. The members were expected to respect themselves as well as other members, and they were encouraged to look after one another. They were also expected to participate in club activities. While these strong women definitely took their passion seriously, the most important Lady Bugs rule was for each and every member to have fun.
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The Lady Bugs entered their first car show sponsored by Pioneer Auto Club in 1975. They knew they did not have a chance to win anything, but they did it to promote the club. During this time, many of the car clubs had business cards printed and exchanged them with each other for invites to club socials, softball games, picnics, and club sponsored dances. The Lady Bugs were known to have some of the best dances, and they were able to invite a lot of the top clubs from that era, thanks to the exchanging of business cards. The Lady Bugs would also help to organize some of the other car clubs’ events, and to thank the Lady Bugs, the clubs would present them with trophies for their efforts. The club also created community service projects, like holiday caroling, at retirement homes during the holiday season.”
-Bueno, J. (2010, October 12). Lady Bugs Car Club – Lowrider Magazine. MotorTrend. https://www.motortrend.com/features/1011-lrmp-lady-bugs-car-club/
I loved this article! Reading about a women’s lowrider group that cruised around in my dream car filled me with so much joy. They were such a positive presence and you can tell from the images in the article that they had created a distinctly feminine community in a culture of masculinity. I would love to be a part of something like this. I feel that in recent years cars have lost a lot of the charm that classic cars possessed. There was a sense of individuality and art in a car. A car was something to be proud of and gave insight into the personality of its owner. Obviously design trends fluctuate and car safety knowledge evolves, but I’d rather just have a cool car.
After reading about Waymo’s self-driving taxis, I’d like to think that the automobile’s personality can slowly return as the self-driving car technology becomes safer than manned vehicles. If we don’t have to worry about human error causing crashes, perhaps we can return to classic car designs without worry for safety in crashes.
I also found it interesting that in most of the photographs of the Lady Bugs (see all 11 photos in the article), they are posed sitting on the hood of their car, resting atop the “frunk” space.
