What It is Like to Attend the Insane, Amazing, and Closed-to-the-Public SEMA Show in 35 Images

The annual SEMA show in Las Vegas is technically an automotive trade occasion but has evolved into a no-holds-barred display of tuning and customization genius. There are usually hundreds of lifted trucks, slammed imports, and engine-swapped muscle automobiles. But there is far far more to the show than that—the parties, the celebrities, the high-octane demos, the excess of it all. (And the Rascal scooters. Seriously, we saw a guy from Road & Track on one.) However, SEMA is not open to the public, but that does not imply you can’;t experience what it’;s like to attend the craziest show on the automotive calendar. Appreciate!

Magnus Walker’;s Iconic Porsche 911 “277″

Stumbling across Magnus Walker’;s well-known 911 “277″ is a normal-ish occurrence for a show like SEMA.

Magnus Walker’;s Next Iconic Porsche 911

Stumbling across a project in progress, in this case, Magnus Walker’;s next 911 build, is a bit less ordinary.

Magnus Walker

Meeting Magnus Walker and talking shop about his next build? Okay, there’;s no way we can play it cool—we nerded out difficult-core.

Boxed Bride and Wedding Celebration

If we could encapsulate SEMA into a metaphorical box, then make that box actual, this is what it would look like. Oh, Claus.

Occasionally You Run Into Richard Petty

We’;re fundamentally ideal friends with the King now. Hey! Richard! Wanna hit up Red Lobster?! Our treat!

Original Batmobile, Any individual?

It really is telling that, at SEMA, the original Batmobile decorates the lobby.

Original Batmobile, Any person?

Holy Toledo, Batman! You have been relegated to the auto show’;s entrance!

Rad Rod Pickup

There are dozens of choice rat rods at SEMA every year, but this one particular stood out, thanks largely to its frequently exercised—and automatic—slammed air-bag suspension.

Rad Rod Pickup

Seemingly at random, the truck would lift up on its air springs with a hiss—before lowering itself without having warning. A handful of bystanders barely escaped.

Rad Rod Pickup

2 rat bikes are the ideal rat accessories for a rat truck.

Rum-Operating Classic Chevrolet Wagon

When approached from the front, this matte-yellow Chevy wagon wowed us with its SEMA-best beach cruiser vibe.

Rum-Operating Classic Chevrolet Wagon

. . . until we walked about the the rear, where we discovered sufficient rum to kick off a correct beach party.

Rum-Operating Classic Chevrolet Wagon

For the record: No, we did not take shots. But we wanted to.

And Finally, the Parties

The greatest portion of SEMA is that it’;s all a single big convention for the different industries that cross paths there—and that means there are a LOT of parties. Like this one particular we attended for the Gran Turismo Awards, in which Sony-selected judges pick their preferred rides from the show.

Sony Gran Turismo Awards party, continued

The Sony Gran Turismo celebration was hosted at Vegas’; newest club, Drai (never ask us how to pronounce that), and featured a number of PlayStation, er, stations exactly where you could play Gran Turismo.

Ford-Powered Superformance Cobras Drifting

If you waited in a lengthy adequate line, Ford would sit you in the passenger seat of a Superformance Cobra replica and let a driver slide it all over the parking lot.

Ford-Powered Superformance Cobras Drifting

With those walls so near, this seems mildly risky, no?

Ford-Powered Superformance Cobras Drifting

Oh look! A blue one!

Airbrushed Goddess

In your ideal Ron Burgundy voice, say it with us now: “Sweet Neptune’;s daughter!”

Hot Wheels Twin Mill

Almost every kid’;s Hot Wheels collection ever has incorporated a Twin Mill, so predictably, this full-size example was mighty popular.

Hot Wheels Twin Mill

Just appear at those proportions! They perform even far better in 1:1 scale.

Hot Wheels Darth Vader Car

Is it just us, or does the Darth Vader car look out of place outdoors in the Las Vegas sun? Wants a lot more Death Star.

Stadium Trucks!

Ford’;s outside exhibition gifted us with a stadium-truck jumping and drifting session early on the second day of SEMA.

Stadium Trucks!

. . . and liftoff!

Stadium Trucks!

Stadium Trucks!

Mini Ford F-150 SVT Raptor

This is a golf cart, created to appear like a Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. Ask us how badly we want it. Go ahead, ask.

Bedazzle All of the Factors

Sparkly engine leading ends, sparkly model bottom finish.

Basic Motors Ride and Drive

Comparable to Ford’;s “Out Front” parking-lot demo arena, showgoers can take (slow) spins in GM’;s latest and greatest.

Basic Motors Ride and Drive

A lengthy exposure and pan makes this Camaro appear fast. In reality, it was governed to 11 mph. Or the driver was governed to 11 mph. Either way.

Common Motors Ride and Drive

GM’;s outside playground also permits SEMA attendees go for rides with Ron Fellows driving college instructors, who drive much, a lot faster than 11 mph.

Purple on Purple on Purple

Handful of factors at SEMA are subtle, so why do up a low-slung beach buggy in anything but layers and layers of purple?

Velocity Wheels Custom Ram 1500

A hood mural depicting actress Megan Fox as the Mona Lisa holding a mustachioed Mona Lisa mask? Verify.

Liberty Walk—for Children

There had been Liberty Walk–fettled rides all more than SEMA this year, but this stanced children’;s ride-on toy may just have been our favorite.

Honda Soireé with Dash Berlin

We also discovered time to crash Honda’;s “Soireé” at the Tao nightclub. And now, if you do not thoughts, we’;re going to sleep for a week straight, simply because if there is 1 takeaway from our synopsis of what it really is like to attend SEMA, it really is that this show totally wrecks you—in an awesomely good way.

What It is Like to Attend the Insane, Amazing, and Closed-to-the-Public SEMA Show in 35 Images

This Blown ’66 Chevelle Is the SEMA Vehicle Every person Is Talking About

November 6, 2014 at 4:53 pm by Aaron Robinson | Photography by Michael Simari

Something like 23 billion show vehicles go on display at SEMA each year, but a couple of genuinely stand out. One particular that had the entire show talking was a ’66 Chevy Chevelle built by Ringbrothers, a hot-rod parts shop in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Completed just in time for SEMA and first seen by its Ohio owner at the show, the Chevelle mixes old-college styling and a hypermodern style theme using copious amounts of carbon fiber, textured aluminum, and milled billet parts.

Built more than 5000 hours at a price of $ 70 per hour plus components, the 980-hp Chevelle makes use of both painted and naked carbon fiber for its bumpers, hood, trunklid, headliner, and dash. The interior is lined with largely painted aluminum that is hydro-dipped to produce a cool textured pattern that resembles a faint tweed stitching. The process takes any screen-printed ink pattern and floats it on water. When the metal piece is slowly dipped into the water, the ink transfers to the piece like a scale-model decal but with out the film, transferring the pattern to the metal.

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Below the hood is a GM dry-sump LS7 Corvette Z06 engine running a Whipple supercharger and mated to a Tremec T56 6-speed. The seats resemble rocket couches, the wheels are 1-off HREs, the cluster is a Racepak digital show, and the whole car has a certain old-college Nissan GT-R appear but modernized for the 21st century.

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This Blown ’66 Chevelle Is the SEMA Vehicle Every person Is Talking About

The Ideal Ford at SEMA Is this 427-Powered ’67 Fairlane on Lamborghini Miura Wheels

November 6, 2014 at 1:39 pm by Aaron Robinson | Photography by Michael Simari

Hot-rod builders sometimes give their automobiles a fictional backstory, and Los Angeles–area car builder Steve Strope reckons his custom stock-auto tribute could have been a Ford Motor Company racing test bed built in between the 1966 and ’67 seasons. The 1967 Fairlane packs one of the well-known Ford “cammer” engines, or a single-overhead-cam 427 running 4 2-barrel Holley carburetors featuring uncommon “Le Mans” racing bowls.

However, the most unusual visual feature is the 15-inch Lamborghini Miura–style knockoff wheels. These have an invented backstory as well: during the rivalry between Ford and Ferrari in the late ’60s, somebody decided that “if you are going to piss off Ferrari, what better way than by using Miura wheels,” mentioned Strope.

The 15-inch pieces were in fact produced brand new for this automobile by machining the vintage style from billet aluminum. The rest of the vehicle features “a bunch of race-inspired things, but absolutely nothing that could fit into an actual series back then,” says Strope. The Fairlane was named the best Ford at SEMA by a group of Ford designers, Strope’s third consecutive win of that prize. We concur.

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The Ideal Ford at SEMA Is this 427-Powered ’67 Fairlane on Lamborghini Miura Wheels

TOYOTA SMASH: Two Tundra Monster Trucks Stomp Into SEMA

Because nothing feels fairly as excellent as crushing the earth for a good lead to, it is with great pleasure (and apologies to, effectively, the ground) that we bring you a pair of skyscraping Toyota trucks brought to the 2014 SEMA show, each one particular designed to call consideration to worthy causes while producing new fissures in the planet’s crust.

Toyota Hiring Our Heroes Monster Truck

As massive as the Tonka truck detailed under is, it is absolutely dwarfed by the Toyota Hiring Our Heroes monster truck, made and constructed to market, as you may have guessed, the hiring of our nation’s military veterans. The truck, which debuted at the Daytona 500 earlier this year and has since been noticed at other events nationwide, steamrolls on 66-inch tall tires wrapped about SWR wheels mounted to a custom-fabricated monster-truck chassis. It also features a driver-powered parking-spot locator, given that it can park wherever the hell it wants to.

A supercharger was fitted to the Tundra’s 5.7-liter V-8, bringing output to a stout 580 horsepower, which may be barely sufficient to get the 10,000-pound truck moving. Otherwise, the modifications are rather light, and a livery was applied to market the trigger. Toyota points out that the air conditioning was left intact to hold occupants comfortable throughout extended parade routes. How’d you like to be in the marching band appropriate in front of that?

Toyota Tonka Tundra

Placing the “toy” in Toyota (and obtaining the most entertaining-to-say name in all of SEMA) the Toyota Tonka Tundra pays homage to community very first responders . . . since sirens and lights are so discreet. The truck is raised on a 10-inch lift kit and rides on 40-inch Toyo tires, even though the red, yellow, and black body is festooned with Fab 4 bumpers, an Addictive Desert Styles roof and bed rack, and Rigid Industries LED lighting with customized light show that is right at house in Vegas. The brave men and ladies who jump out of their fire trucks and ambulances to drive this issue will get pleasure from a Katzkin custom interior and, of course, upgraded audio, even though they could require a fire station pole to get out.

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TOYOTA SMASH: Two Tundra Monster Trucks Stomp Into SEMA

Viva La Targa! Scion Chops Portion of the Roof Off the FR-S Sports Automobile for SEMA

For years, rumors have swirled about Scion developing a convertible version of the FR-S. Alas, nicely into the FR-S’ life cycle, such a issue has never appeared, at least not in production kind. There was a notion, the FT-86 Open, which Scion parent business Toyota showed last year at the Geneva auto show. And along comes this: a beautiful targa-roofed FR-S show car.

Making its debut at the 2014 SEMA show, the “FR-S T1″ was created by Jeremy Lookofsky of Cartel Customs and wears “Azzuro California Blue” and black paint. The roof section over the front passengers is removable, and the (all metal) widened physique is dropped more than lacy 19-inch forged wheels. The details are just as savory: smoked lights, a perforated grille insert, 2 tiny round exterior mirrors, and, a totally integrated rear spoiler. The interior is specifically nice, resplendent as it is in creamy leather with black stitching.

Below the skin there is a KW coilover suspension, a GReddy turbocharger(!) kit for the boxer engine, a Wilwood Big Brake kit, a center-exit exhaust, and of course, audio upgrades. But our favorite piece has got to be the incredible black louvers over the rear window—a styling device whose time came and went 30 years ago, and we believe, has come again.

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Need to Scion contemplate a targa-bodied FR-S? We feel so. Porsche just brought back a suitable targa version of its vaunted 911, albeit with a heavy and complicated motorized roof, and the outcome is stunning. Even Nissan is reportedly taking into consideration a targa-roofed Z. A Scion targa wouldn’t need to be so complex or heavy—keep the lid manually removable and ditch the wide physique and we feel it is wholly doable.

The only stick in this plan’s mud? Toyota says an FR-S roadster would be also pricey to create and as well pricey to be sold as a Scion in the U.S. Let’s hope they can discover area for this ‘tweener targa answer, since it’s hot.

Viva La Targa! Scion Chops Portion of the Roof Off the FR-S Sports Automobile for SEMA

This Is What the World’s Come to: A Slayer-Modified—Yes, the Metal Band—Scion tC for SEMA

Metal icons Slayer are all about quick, loud, and violent. The gothic-macabre Slayer Scion tC that Toyota will bring to SEMA this year embodies at least 2 of these qualities, with a skull-festooned aesthetic and an interior crammed complete of with audio gear.

The black and red coupe has custom airbrushed skulls on either side and the Slayer eagle logo on the hood. Billet sword blade wheels with menacing spike center caps and ominous red lighting accents dial up the demonic aesthetic outdoors that is taken care of in the cabin by a skull shift knob and sword-hilt emergency brake handle. Custom seat inserts mimic the covering on a Marshall amp.

Don’t strategy on bringing any back-seat passengers, though—as if they’d want to be stuck in the back of a tC anyway—as the Pioneer audio system packs a wall of speakers behind the front seats, while the hatchback opens up to reveal 2 suspended stacks of Marshall amps. A slide-out tray in the back bumper reveals 2 guitar jacks. Yes, you can plug straight into this automobile and use it as a mobile stack although the trunk-mounted 32-inch screen shows what ever your cold, metal heart desires.

Oh, and it is going to rain blood in Vegas: Scion says unspecified Slayer members will be at SEMA to plug into and play by way of the tC.

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This Is What the World’s Come to: A Slayer-Modified—Yes, the Metal Band—Scion tC for SEMA