Every year during the first week of November, the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, is overtaken by automotive aftermarket companies making their presence known at the annual SEMA Show, held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) provides an opportunity for custom automotive businesses to showcase their latest wears and generate interest in these newly developed products. In order to give those in attendance a visual of how certain products will look installed, many companies build project vehicles for the show every year, which are completed just in time to be driven or trailered to the show and displayed in their respective booths.
The latest SEMA Show was held November 4-7 and brought in more than 100,000 automotive professionals visiting some 1,800 exhibitors and approximately 9,100 booths. Custom truck fanatics were in heaven at SEMA, as newly developed lifted and lowering kits were introduced for stance enhancement, as well as performance and exterior styling products to increase a truck's power and looks. In addition to checking out all the hot new products at SEMA, taking in all the wild custom project trucks put our brains on sensory overload. Everything from pavement-grinding classic and contemporary custom Chevrolet, Ford, and Dodge pickups rolling on the latest large-diameter rim combos, to skyscraping 4x4s sporting the wheel and tire industries largest off-road rolling packages, were in attendance and turning heads. Each year, SEMA seems to be dominated by one of the Big Three's new vehicle offerings, and the show was filled with a large sampling of modified '04 Ford F-150 pickups. The amount of custom aftermarket products already in development for this new workhorse was astounding. Traffic was heavy at the Primedia booth (the publisher of Truckin'), where enthusiasts could check out their favorite magazine titles and catch a glimpse of freshly finished magazine project vehicles.
Moving outside, several custom pickups from different makes and model years occupied the walkway and parking lot in front of the Las Vegas Convention Center, which included Marcel Venable's amazing blown small-block-powered, two-tone silver and green '56 Chevy pickup sitting low on air suspension, with big-inch Americans under the fenders. A strong presence of classic iron permeated this latest installment of the SEMA Show, and each custom example was stunning in its own right. In addition to all the bright and bold classic pickups in attendance were several lifted trucks sitting tall with large-diameter rims and rubber, wild paint schemes, and chromed and painted undercarriages. Many of these lifted stunners could be seen in front of the vast assortment of custom powerboats displayed in the SEMA Performance Marine Pavilion display in the Las Vegas Convention Center's front parking lot. Several of the marine industry's most successful custom boat manufacturers had their water missiles on display. Even a few privately owned old-school V-drive flatbottoms were on hand to give the display a bit of nostalgia.
This latest SEMA Show was packed with innovative new products and project vehicles, and was a huge success for vendors and Primedia's respective magazine titles. For more information, go to www.sema.org.