Low Profile: Lowrider's First Lady, Tina Blankenship-Early
Published on June 11, 2024
“You let the car speak for itself”
Tina L. Blankenship-Early has been a fixture of the Los Angeles lowriding scene for more than two decades. She got the nickname “First Lady” because she was the first woman to join the car club Super Naturals. She is also the first woman inducted into the National Lowrider Hall of Fame (2012) and the first woman elected to Lowrider magazine’s Hall of Fame (2023), making her a “first lady” in that regard as well.
She bought her Caprice in 2003 and spent years transforming it into “Game Killa”. She calls it a “street show car” because she uses it on the boulevard but also takes it to car shows. The vehicle has won dozens of awards and was featured in the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton. Blankenship-Early prides herself on her knowledge of the lowrider build process and encourages other women to embrace this aspect of lowriding: “That is really the most important thing...Not just being seen as we own lowriders but that we can also build, that we have the artistic part of it.”
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Vehicle Spotlight Featured in this Video
1966 Chevrolet Caprice “Game Killa”
