Creating Mobile Masterpieces With Bugs Auto Art

This article originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of THE SHOP magazine.

By Mike Madriaga

Photos courtesy Efrain Gonzales & Cynthia Coury

When it comes to automotive artistry, few can rival the meticulous craftsmanship and creative prowess of Efrain “Bugs” Gonzales. Operating under the moniker Bugs Auto Art, the Mesa, Arizona, native has carved out a unique niche in the custom automotive world, transforming classic cars into mobile masterpieces that are as much works of art as they are vehicles.

As another trade show season approached, Gonzales kindly took some time to delve into his old-school lowrider journey, the intricacies of paint craft, and the challenges and triumphs of running a multifaceted operation while keeping his exclusive projects under wraps.

A SLAM-DUNK BUILD

One of his latest high-profile triumphs is a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, revamped in the NBA’s Phoenix Suns’ iconic purple and orange colors. The showpiece was commissioned by the Suns and driven by their 6-foot-6 point guard, Devin Booker, making waves across the sports, automotive and music communities alike.

In November 2023, the Phoenix Suns’ official Instagram account posted a video of the lowrider-inspired Bel Air. In a gritty, hip-hop-esque scenario, Booker, a four-time NBA All-Star, approaches Gonzales in a garage.

“Bugs! Is it ready?” Booker asks with a mix of excitement and urgency.

“She’s ready,” Gonzales replies, a hint of pride in his voice. “Check it out.”

“That’s how you unveil it right there,” Booker continues as the camera pans to reveal the car in all its glory.

A thumping Spanish rap track sets the tone as the two are filmed cruising down Phoenix streets in the now world-renowned 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air lowrider. The word on the streets, from Phoenix to Los Angeles, is that a project of this magnitude typically takes car builders two years to complete.

Yet, Gonzales and his team accomplished it in under two months.

“We spent many nights here at Earnhardt Chevrolet in Chandler,” Gonzales reveals.

The massive project took a lot longer to secure. Gonzales notes that the Suns’ staff monitored him for two years, as if scouting a first-round draft pick, before deciding he was the right person to customize their “lolo” or lowrider.

And, for a good reason—since 1987, Gonzales has expertly applied techniques like flake pinstriping, pearl tape shades, water drops and silver leafing with candy clearcoats on the top cars in Arizona and California. His steady hands even pinstriped a Las Vegas-inspired lowrider owned by Joe Ray, former editor of Lowrider Magazine.

Almost every vehicle touched by Gonzales’s paintbrush or sprayed by his airbrush has the “Bugs Did It” signature—now the Suns’ official lowrider is a part of Bug’s legacy.

STARTING THE JOURNEY

The collaborative project went into effect when Gonzales first received a phone call from a team representative.

“He told me about painting a car for the Suns,” Gonzales recalls. “I’m like, ‘Is he serious, or is somebody messing around?’”

Gonzales and his close friends later met with the Suns’ team in downtown Phoenix.

“I’m pinching myself, asking, ‘Is this real?’”

His daughter, Cynthia Coury, adds, “The Suns presented the El Valle uniform and asked him if he could incorporate the purple and orange colors from the uniform into a paint job and build them the best lowrider. They even gave him total creative freedom.”

The El Valle uniform, including the shorts and jersey, spotlights the classic lowrider—a genre of vehicle customization created by Chicanos (Mexican Americans) in the 1940s and ’50s. Lowriders, typically domestic cars lowered to the ground, originated in the Southwest United States, including Phoenix.

The NBA website states, “Today, the lowrider culture is part of Phoenix’s identity. The city is home to dozens of lowrider car clubs and annual shows. The lowrider representation can be seen on the side panels of the jerseys and the shorts, featuring a custom pinstriping design commonly found within lowrider paint jobs. Most notably, the jersey also features a hand-drawn ‘El Valle’ inspired by the Chicano art movement, representing the dedicated Chicano and Hispanic fans.”

In addition to being a vehicle, “lowrider” can refer to the person driving it, making Gonzales the perfect candidate. As a Chicano and member of Lifestyle, one of the most exclusive lowrider clubs in the United States, he has been customizing lowriders for over three decades.

As proof, Gonzales pulls out his phone and shows the step-by-step process he and his team used to meet the Suns’ two-month deadline.

The Suns dropped off the Bel Air, originally painted red and white, at Bugs Auto Art’s body shop on Aug. 10, 2023. Tucked away in a secret area of the 71-year-old Earnhardt Chevrolet dealership just east of Phoenix, the build was discreetly executed amidst the bustling activity of the dealership’s other auto garages.

To the untrained eye, it was difficult to discern that a project of such magnitude was taking place. But that’s just it—Gonzales only requires a few tools, many of which are crammed into his small red toolbox, adorned with a sticker that reads “Always Handpainted.”

His main products include an RTI air compressor, FBS tape, One Shot and House of Kolor paint, flake and Striping and Lettering Enamel, USC sandpaper, and Iwata paint guns and airbrushes.

“They are high-quality products made by the best,” he says.

To speed up the build process and meet the Suns’ tight deadline, Gonzales enlisted the help of his family and friends. The crew used hand and electric sanders with USC products to strip the Bel Air’s original paint. The RTI air compressor provided air for the crew’s power tools.

“My son, Mikey, my brother, Chubs, my cousin, Fernando, and even my wife, Tiffany, helped me with the body; they prepped it,” Gonzales explains. “That includes taking apart the car and sand-blocking it. We were here day and night.”

Gonzales requested his team not to post photos or videos of the Bel Air online, especially the project’s location and owner’s name. The Phoenix Suns fans are diehard and loyal, and the vehicle’s location had to be kept secret.

After the vehicle was stripped and prepped, the crew used FBS masking tape to protect trim, rubber pieces and accessories from overspray.

Gonzales employs a lot of FBS tape, particularly fine-line tape, which is essential for masking off areas to lay out and help create multiple paint designs and graphics. The more stripes, accents and layers, the more taping and painting are required.

The car was then pushed into a downdraft spray booth, where Gonzales used an Anest Iwata spray gun to apply House of Kolor’s purple and orange paints and all of the needed flakes and pearls.

For freehand lettering and pinstriping, Gonzales turns to House of Kolor’s Striping and Lettering Enamel or 1-Shot paint and a variety of brushes, each serving a unique purpose. Chiseled-edge brushes are used for lettering and filling in large areas with color; narrow, needle-like brushes, on the other hand, are ideal for scrolls and intricate details. Sword-shaped brushes are the go-to for long, flowing lines and most striping work.

ALL-STAR EFFORT

Gonzales assembled an all-star team from the metro Phoenix lowrider community to meet the two-month deadline.

Samson Fernandez from Come on Holmes Kustoms and his crew gutted the vehicle and created its hydraulic system.

“I’ve been doing hydraulics since 1996,” Fernandez says. “It was all hands-on learning, with a little help from my dad, a mechanic specializing in fabrication and metal work.”

Fernandez tore out the rear end, fabricated it into a four-link suspension, welded in a trunk and added a support bridge. He also shortened some parts so the car would sit low when the skirts were put on.

“I don’t want to do regular stuff,” Fernandez says. “I like to be creative.”

A switch box by the driver’s bench seat controls the pumps, actuators and hydraulic cylinders atop the shocks and wheels. Multiple batteries power the system.

The trunk of the Suns’ promo vehicle is a gem in itself, home to the chrome-plated and custom-painted hydraulic configuration. The trunk is “tubbed,” a technique popularized by car stereo installers in the early 2000s, where fiberglass panels are created, painted and installed to make the trunk appear smooth and seamless.

“And everything I do in the trunk, I’ll have Bugs paint as well,” Fernandez continues. “So, with the paint, the chrome and everything in there, including the hydraulic tubing, they accent each other.”

The hydraulics are powerful enough to lift the car off the ground when Booker and his Suns teammates need to clear speed bumps or dips. As witnessed in the viral clip aired by ESPN, when Booker pulls into the Suns’ garage, he drops the Bel Air back down to an almost impossibly low stance.

The upholstery—designed, stitched and installed by Jeremy’s Upholstery—includes a purple-colored boot to cover the convertible top. The car is finished off with classic 13×7-inch Dayton 72-spoke wheels wrapped in low-profile tires.

Since a lowrider is incomplete without chrome, Pelon’s Chrome and Polishing chromed the hydraulic lines, some hardware and the lowrider plaque mounted atop the rear seats, which reads “El Valle.” Then, team Bugs polished out the other OEM chrome parts.

Gonzales only wishes they had an extra week to work on the engine.

“We didn’t do any engine work on it,” he says. “All we did was the hydraulics, interior and paint job. It’s a nice street cruiser, not a full-blown show car.”

Reflecting on the project, Gonzales is proud of what they accomplished in less than 60 days and that they did it as a family.

“It was something fun and challenging. It felt so good to create a beautiful piece of art, knowing that it was going to represent a professional sports team in Arizona and the Mexican lowrider culture,” he says.

BUGS’ BEGINNINGS

“As a kid, my family would travel up to Northern California to pick crops,” Gonzales vividly remembers. “Helping my uncles and mom pick strawberries and tomatoes taught me humility.”

In the 1970s and ’80s, riding in the back of pickup trucks was a rite of passage for many kids, as was raising an arm to mimic tooting a horn at semi-truck drivers in hopes they’d blare their air horns. Young Gonzales did both on the I-10 on their way to California.

“As kids, we’d pull our arms down,” he recalls, “and that’s when I noticed the lettering on the trucks and how beautiful they looked at night with all the lights. The pinstriping captivated me, and the more I saw, the more I got drawn into the art.”

That early fascination has come full circle. Today, thanks to his youth spent in the back of his uncles’ and grandfather’s pickups, Gonzales regularly pinstripes and applies lettering and silver leaf to big rigs and semis.

However, another rite of passage that transitioned then-teen Gonzales to “Bugs” wasn’t so innocent. One day, Gonzales was busted in high school for something he prefers not to discuss.

“I prayed, ‘God, help me get out of this mess, and if you do, I’ll change my life,’” he recalls.

His prayers were answered, setting the trajectory for his days as a lifelong lowrider. Gonzales dove headfirst into the car cruising scene on Central Avenue in Phoenix around 1980-81. It was the city’s answer to the cruising rituals of Van Nuys Boulevard in Los Angeles and the King and Story intersections of San Jose.

The desert night air was thick with the gleam of polished chrome and the hypnotic shimmer of custom candy and iridescent pearl paint jobs, casting surreal reflections that could mesmerize anyone watching. As one might imagine, seeing such sights without cell phones was an intense, in-the-moment experience.

“That’s all I thought about,” Gonzales reminisces. “Lowriders, murals, pinstriping, custom painting—and the girls.”

MAKING A NAME

Gonzales was so enamored with the lowrider lifestyle that he wanted to be more than just a spectator. So, he began painting and pinstriping cars.

“When I started, (fellow painter) OG Mando inspired me,” he says. “I always said if I was going to paint in Arizona, I needed to be good enough to hang with Mando.”

And sure enough, Gonzales’s projects began to sit alongside Mando’s at car shows.

“His compliments about my paint meant a lot to me,” Gonzales says. “Respect is essential in this field.”

Another artist, Mister Cartoon, a now world-renowned tattoo artist, convinced Gonzales to move to “LA for a while to learn lettering and graphics at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. And while there, I met more great artists, including OG Abel.”

Then there’s Danny D. “We saw each other’s work around 1992 and we became good friends,” Gonzales recalls.

They’d hit the road, attending lowrider and classic car shows. Back then, there was no internet advertising; most marketing was done via word of mouth.

“We traveled to different states to stripe, sharing personal stories and art.”

Gonzales connected with Joe Ray, who would become Lowrider Magazine’s editor-in-chief. “We’d talk about color schemes and cars, and he’d share stories about the ’70s. It felt like sitting around a campfire, listening to stories from the older guys from Lifestyle Car Club—which I would end up joining also in the 1990s.”

Gonzales learned from and hung out with the best.

“Legends like Bill Carter, Mario Gomez and Danny D all took their secrets with them,” he says. “I have a tattoo in memory of Danny D on my right forearm—

rest in peace.”

A LIFETIME OF EXPERIENCE

Nowadays, even with the completion of the Phoenix Suns project and others in the works—projects he keeps under wraps to prevent planned paint schemes from leaking on social media—Gonzales remains committed to the old-school ways.

“New painters today watch YouTube and think they know everything,” he says. “They share all the secrets, but some things should be kept to yourself, especially if it’s good. I see people on YouTube revealing paint secrets and it bothers me because they do it for the likes. I do this for a living.”

Because of the influx of newbie YouTube painters who haven’t necessarily paid their dues with the OGs, as Gonzales and many of his comrades from the baby boomer and Gen-X eras did in their respective customizing lanes, there’s been a lull in the market’s customization prices.

“One of the biggest challenges I face is the presence of lowballers in the industry,” Gonzales says. “Painters who take work for barely anything drive the market down and make it hard for the rest of us.”

Now in his early 60s, despite the lowballers, technology and social media, Gonzales sticks to the old-school ways, working primarily by himself when he preps, pinstripes and paints his projects. That’s unless the car is a high-profile project with a serious deadline, in which case he’ll assemble another car-customizing dream team, like the one that built the Phoenix Suns’ Chevy Bel Air.

His daughter, Coury, concludes: “The world knows my dad as ‘Bugs,’ but my brothers and I know him as ‘Daddy.’ In our backyards, in his shops, in my nana’s carport, there has always been a car or vehicle under a cover. The light in the garage has never been turned off. My dad has always been the first to wake up and the last one to sleep. For our whole lives, we have watched stars be born.”

Mike Madriaga is an award-winning multimedia journalist who has created content for a variety of media outlets. From 2000-06, he owned and managed Team Prototype, a world-renowned auto fabrication shop in San Diego that built dozens of car show winners, magazine cover vehicles and SEMA projects.