ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 24, 1996 TAG: 9610240004
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: YOKOSUKA, JAPAN
SOURCE: ERIC TALMADGE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hirohiko Kawachi is carving out a place in the business world - but he has no dreams of getting off the ground.
Kawachi sells ``low-riders,'' American automobiles from the big-car era that are slung as low as they can go and rigged with hydraulic pumps that enable them to bounce up and down, right and left.
``The first time I saw them, I thought they were the silliest thing in the world,'' Kawachi says of the customized cars, which originated in California.
But he became fascinated and decided to import them to Japan, the 27-year-old former plumber says over the heavily amplified beat of rap music and the purr of an immaculate 1964 Chevrolet Impala, one of several that fill his garage-showroom.
The gleaming, pavement-hugging cars from the mean streets of Los Angeles are for a growing band of Japanese motorheads the coolest thing on the road.
For Japanese youth, low-riders offer a safe taste of the exotic and, in an often regimented society, the rebellious: a big, impractical American car, and the flavor of the American inner city.
With much media fanfare, Japan had its first official low-rider show last month, at one of the Tokyo area's ritzier convention centers no less.
Kawachi, who displayed several of his cars at the show, says that while the show was the first taste of low-riders for many Japanese, the cars have been around in this country for years.
There is even the bimonthly Roraida Magajin, or Low-Rider Magazine, circulation 100,000.
Akio Sato, a Low-Rider editor, estimates there are only a few hundred ``real'' low-riders - meaning imported from the United States - throughout the country.
But, he adds, ``It is really catching on. The cars are so flashy - and that's appealing to young people.''
Like most other Japanese low-rider fans, Kawachi got his start at the de rigueur Saturday-night gatherings on the Yokohama waterfront, just south of Tokyo, where the initiated cruise and compare the shine of their chrome and the bump-and-grind of their hydraulics.
Smitten seven years ago by a car ``so low you couldn't even see the tires,'' Kawachi quit his job as a plumber, sold his souped-up Nissan truck and opened Topmost, where he imports low-riders straight from Los Angeles.
Though American cars have never sold well in Japan - a perennial source of friction between the two countries - they have always evoked an image of luxury and status in the Japanese mind.
Kawachi says status and young fashion trends are a definite part of the low-riders' current popularity. U.S. urban chic is in with young Japanese, who see low-riders as another - albeit expensive - bobble.
``My philosophy is that if something is big in L.A., it will catch on in Japan,'' says Kawachi, whose garage is in a quiet neighborhood of Yokosuka, a city 30 miles southwest of Tokyo.
Like their counterparts in the United States, low-rider lovers in Japan tend to be young - 18-30 - and of middle- or working-class backgrounds.
But Kawachi's cars don't come cheap. They sell for 2.5 million to 4 million yen ($25,000-$40,000). Even so, he says he gets two or three orders a month.
``Most of my customers go into debt to be able to have a car like this,'' he says. ``Even I can't afford one of my own.''
Though they are the love of his life, Kawachi admits keeping a low-rider in Japan isn't always easy.
By law, cars must be at least 31/2 inches off the ground. But that's only if they are moving. ``We let them down when we're parked,'' Kawachi says. ``So that's not so much of a problem.''
Some other things are.
Low-riders are hard to maneuver on Japan's crowded, narrow roads. Parking is always a concern. The cars guzzle gasoline, which costs the equivalent of $3.80 a gallon in Japan, and they have their steering wheels on the wrong side.
But, hey, who cares?
``These cars have got personality,'' Kawachi says. ``If you want a reasonable car, buy a Toyota.''
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Makoto Ohnuki (left) and Akemi Honma check out aby CNB1964 Chevy Impala SS low-rider while shopping at Topmost, a Tokyo
specialist in converting '60s Chevrolets into low-slung cruising
cars. color.