LOS ANGELES — Alejandro "Chino" Vega is the proud owner of an award-winning, candy-green 1979 Monte Carlo. It goes by the name "Orgullo Mexicano" and has a distinctive Aztec flavor.

But don't expect to see Vega cruising in this sparkling lowrider on Whittier or Crenshaw boulevards anytime soon.

He has spent tens of thousands of dollars customizing his "Mexican Pride" for competition, not to flex its hydraulic might on the streets. In five years, he has entered more than 30 shows and brought home more than 100 trophies — including three Lowrider magazine "car of the year" awards, the most prestigious honor in the industry.

These days, the most he ever drives his prized possession is the 20 feet required by contest judges to certify the car is operational.

No worry, he says, the car is built to ride low, not long. Its gas tank holds only 1 1/2 gallons.

Lowriding, a craze that was born on the boulevards 50 years ago in Mexican-American communities across the Southwest, has been driven indoors — the result of aging enthusiasts, crackdowns on cruising and the emergence of corporate sponsorship.

But the transformation goes deeper. When the streets were closed, says Ralph Fuentes, editor of Lowrider magazine, "there was no place to go. Lowriding was dying."

Car shows, Fuentes says, have aided in its resurrection.

"Lowriding has a bad-boy image," says Fuentes, whose magazine sponsors an annual tour of a dozen shows nationwide, drawing 130,000 people and 5,500 cars. "But if you look beyond that image, there is a wonderful way to see a multicultural cross-section of America. Lowriding is about different cultures getting together."

Few families even owned cars in the small town near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where Vega grew up. Money was scarce, and so was food. But his father taught him to scuba dive as a way to make a living, and soon he found plenty to eat.

"If you wanted lobster, you could have it fresh," Vega recalls. "It was good food, but it was hard work and not much pay."

In 1988, when he was 15, Vega left Mexico with a group of young men and made his way north to Los Angeles and then to Pacoima, Calif. They slept in a car for several days before finding a crowded apartment to share. Vega enrolled in auto-repair classes at a local occupational center.

And then, one day, he saw his first lowrider.

"It was candy-apple red, a Cadillac, and belonged to a guy named Tito," he says. "I wanted to have a car like that. Eventually, I got one, a '64 Impala, and when Tito saw it, he stopped and said, 'Hey, that's better than mine.' He told me to get some rims."

Vega's passion for lowriders led him to open a small shop in Sylmar, near Los Angeles, specializing in installing the hydraulic pumps used to raise or lower a car at the flip of a switch. Soon, he was competing in car-hopping contests and winning. His 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass set a record, jumping 53 inches from the pavement.

Then Vega and his younger brother Joaquin set their sights on another category, winning "car of the year" at Lowrider magazine's Super Show in Las Vegas, the nation's largest lowrider event, which earlier this fall drew 19,000 people and nearly 700 cars.

In 2002, the first year they entered the '79 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, the car would not start and was disqualified. The next year, they came back and won top honors. They repeated the victory in 2005 and again in 2006.

"You look at the cars and they all stand out, but then when you get down to the nuts and bolts, the small details — the chips, the scratches — stand out," says Richard Ochoa, one of the judges. "Chino has brought the level of customizing to the next tier. Some people consider themselves builders, some artists. It is really a combination of the two."

LOWRIDER HISTORY

The roots of lowriding can be traced to the post-World War II economic boom that swept Mexican-American working-class communities in the Southwest, says Denise Sandoval, a Chicano studies professor at California State University, Northridge.

Lowriders, known at that time as pachuco cars, were part of a car culture that took off in the 1950s.

"White kids were interested in hot rods and speed," Sandoval says, "but Latinos wanted cars to look sleek, low and slow — 'bajito y suavecito.' "

In East and South Los Angeles, enthusiasts lowered their cars by putting bags of concrete in the trunk or wrapping chains around the coils in the suspension — even heating them with a blowtorch — until the use of hydraulic pumps came into fashion. Multiple coats of paint were de rigueur. Custom wheels, chrome and hood murals were added for artistic appeal.

Then, after the Watts riots, the cars began to be called lowriders as the culture started to spread.

Fuentes counts more than 400 lowrider car clubs in the United States. But over the past decade, the thirst for lowriding has gone international, fueled largely by an explosion of hip-hop music and videos featuring lowriders as the car of choice.

Lowriders, Fuentes says, are part of the culture in Britain, Japan, Guam and even Saudi Arabia, where a member of the royal family is said to have purchased two: a Ford Galaxy and a Chevrolet Impala. ("He doesn't take it cruising," Fuentes says. "We understand he goes hunting in it for wild boar.")

Lowrider magazine has been circulated throughout the Middle East by thousands of troops in Iraq, he adds. "Families are including copies of the magazine in care packages, and it's being passed around."

One measure of growing national interest can be seen in the thousands of people who came to October's Super Show in Las Vegas, where hundreds of cars competed for a variety of prizes, including those awarded for hopping, dancing and design (traditional and radical).

Dwain Collins, a 41-year-old barber from Little Rock, Ark., came to the Super Show with an orange and purple 1987 Nissan Maxima dubbed "One Bad Max."

Determined to bring home a winner, he spent $85,000 on his car, which had a mural of his 10-year-old daughter painted on the hood. Collins returned to Arkansas with a third-place finish.

"I was very disappointed," he said later. "We did so much work, and to come up third? I don't know if I'll ever go back."

Vega was not disappointed and plans to put this year's "car of the year" award in his living room next to the others. But there's not a lot of room in the house for the many trophies he has amassed over the years.

"We keep most of them out back around the side of the house," says his wife, Jessenia, pointing to a row of more than 100 competition trophies.

It has been about five years since Vega and half a dozen close friends launched the effort to capture the big prize — worth $2,500 in money but much more in name recognition.

"The show is the only place where you can really show your cars," he says. "I wanted to build a car that would win, and I started with a name."

Most owners, Vega says, use English names, so he knew he had to do something different. He began thinking about his Mexican pride and soon the name became clear.

"I think I said it first," his wife says. " 'Let's use "Orgullo Mexicano," or Mexican Pride.' "

The name gave a theme to the Monte Carlo. An Aztec goddess was painted on the hood; figures from the Aztec calendar were engraved on the chrome and gold plating throughout the car, including the wheel mounts. The seats, upholstered in soft velour, rotate. The engine was upgraded with fuel injection. The car was outfitted with six hydraulic pumps to make the car go up and down.

The $70,000 custom-built machine has no steering wheel or gas pedal. To meet competition requirements, it has a manual brake, and electric switches turn the vehicle left or right, back and forth. Vega recalls: "In Denver I once drove about 100 feet to get out of the rain" — and that's the farthest he's ever driven the car.

For some, there's something sacrilegious about the idea of building a lowrider that takes you nowhere.

"You wouldn't catch me rolling down the street in that car," says Mike Ishiki, 41, who works in a hydraulic shop and is familiar with Vega's car. "I want to have something that is drivable. I can't see spending $50,000 for a car and then having to tow it everywhere."

But Vega sticks to the letter of the car-show law. In Las Vegas in October, his Monte Carlo edged out two tough rivals: "Games Over," a 1980 Cadillac, and "Certified Gangster," a '64 Chevy.