The original ’48 Long Beach Cavaliers. Photos courtesy of The Long Beach Cavaliers.

The Long Beach Cavaliers, one of the oldest car clubs in Southern California, will celebrate its 65th anniversary this Saturday. Like their Depression-era predecessors who gave birth to American car club culture, the Cavaliers exude everything hot rodders originally stood for: working class men who proved that a car is more than just a status symbol, it can be a social statement as well.

With their belief in brotherhood, mutual help and care for one another, and an appreciation for history, the Cavaliers also exude everything Long Beach.

“We just help each other out with our cars,” said Cavaliers President and Bellflower resident Rick Perez. “Some have the ability to do body work, some do motor work. We fix up our own cars—we don’t need to go out and buy anything because someone in the club can do it. We’re like brothers—it’s more about friends first than who has the best car.”

That philosophy was an inherent part of the hot rod culture: money wasn’t the only way to achieve automotive status, as young, working men began tinkering with and moulding what would eventually become the hot rod. These young men created not just fast cars, but cars that made a statement about the power of banding together.

The Cavaliers have, historically speaking, three generations of hot rodders that span its history since its inception at Poly High School in 1948: ’48 to ’56, ’57 to ’64—the largest with over 100 members—and ’96 to the present.

The massive three-decade gap was not just a practical one—Perez notes that the club members soon had families and full-time jobs, leading to the club naturally dissipating—but a cultural one: with the rise of the muscle car in the 60s and the hippie generation, coupled with the car itself becoming a standard of everyday living, car clubs soon found themselves becoming less and less significant.

“But we [the current generation of Cavaliers] already have families,” Perez said. “So there wasn’t a burden, y’know? We just wanted to build cars. And even though there’s only ten of us, we’re a family. And we’re proud of what we build.”

And build they did and do, crafting each car using only era-specific tools and parts while eschewing contemporary technology and mechanics. Perez’s current project, what he calls the “Eskimo Pipe,” is a chocolate brown ’29 Ford with a white interior. But it was Ivan Sanchez—the man who rejuvenated the club’s existence in the 90s—and his home-made hot rod that sparked new life into the Cavaliers, when one day an old man approached Sanchez.

“Ivan was driving his hot rod and an old man stopped him because he thought it was his own car from back in the day,” Perez said. “Ivan said, ‘Oh no, man, I built this from scratch.’ Turns out that old guy was a Cavalier. Their friendship ended up getting Ivan permission to start the club back up.”

Ivan’s influence was an essential component to the club’s continued success, as Perez became an apprentice of sorts—Perez noted that Ivan built him his first car—and he soon took over the Cavaliers once Ivan moved to Texas. Even though the club has seen its ups and down, with periods of increased activity as well as long dry spells, their appreciation of history has never waned—and Perez notes this emphatically.

“The stories, man, the stories are just awesome and incredible,” Perez said, launching into a famed story from ’59 involving Joe the Cavalier, a monkey the club had not only dressed up, but paraded around town proudly as a member on weekends. “That all went south when one day he got drunk and took a bite out of one of the members. Then, y’know, Joe wasn’t allowed around anymore.”

Felipe “Aladdin” Cordero working on the car of fellow Cavalier Todd Lancaster.

Perez’s stories continue, recounting past members’ nostalgic tales of chases through fields, being shot at by farmers, making out with girlfriends, and racing police—a time that is clearly bygone, but solidified in the oral history by the increasingly aging founding members of the Long Beach Cavaliers.

It is no wonder then that hot rod guru and Bronx documentarian Brian Darwas became fascinated by the club to such an extent that he created a film about them aptly titled This Is Long Beach, the filmmaker’s fourth dive into the world of souped-up cars.

The documentary will be screened at the Cavaliers’ 65th Anniversary celebration at the Petroleum Club—which is now officially sold out—where the club’s current and past members, dressing up in their sleekest, will be recounting stories both new and old.

“I know people think they’re cool, when hot rods are rolling down the street,” Perez said, “but what they may not think about is the time and heart it took to keep these things running—especially since we build them like back in the day.”

The Cavaliers will celebrate their 65th Anniversary on Saturday, November 9, from 5PM to midnight at the Petroleum Club, located at 3636 Linden Avenue. Tickets are currently sold out. To purchase a copy of This Is Long Beach, click here.

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