SEMA 2014 Words and Pictures (Latest: Pg3 Modern Bonus)

[HoTWire]

Here we go again, last time I did one of these it took nearly three weeks to get through it all, I'm hoping this will be quicker... we'll see.

So... SEMA Specialty Equipment Market Association

America has a HUGE aftermarket car industry, just like Europe, covering everything from stereo installs to full race builds, just like Europe, and this industry is represented by a well organised and authoritative body to protect its members interests, just like ... oh. Each year SEMA organise a big old trade show where literally hundreds of thousands of people representing various companies turn up and look at the stuff offered by literally thousands of companies that have displays there, it is vast, it is in Vegas, and it is pretty damn awesome.

Our Story

After going to Autosport last year to try and find some more companies to be involved with for sponsorship of The Gathering and for advertising on here I realised that whilst it is an enjoyable event the target audience for companies doesn't really match what we are about. I looked at the Techno Classica in Essen as an alternative, but again it isn't quite what we're about. SEMA seemed like the closest thing to our market, even if it is in the US of A. So the plan was set, four days in Vegas, with a bit of a post Gathering holiday tacked on the end in Santa Monica. Flights were booked, hotels were booked, bags packed, camera packed, note pad packed, business cards accidentally forgotten at home and off we go.

BLAM we're in Vegas :



Vegas Baby, Vegas!

SEMA takes over a lot of the town, everywhere you go there are people going to or from hotels with their lanyards on, given the volume of people Vegas is very happy to accommodate:


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Now the intro is written I need to get back to the day job (despite having spent a week away doing RR stuff it is sadly not my actual job), so I'll leave you with the knowledge you can get to all my photos from the event at the Flickr links below the pictures, or you can wait for me to tell the story. I'll update more this evening.

In the mean time a little teaser for part one of the show

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

[dbizzle]

Just flicked through your Flickr and it made me do an excite.

[gotwood]

Amazing pics HW , thanks for sharing

[mattc]

Awesome.

Just out of interest how does one go about getting tickets for this? Do you have to be in the trade?

[HoTWire]

Arrival and Discovery

After a minorly hellish flight, no fault of BA but migraine inducing seating position in cattle class combined with a very, very, very drunk chap talking loudly through the entire flight in front made for an experience we'd rather forget. We landed safely though and as we made our way through the security snake I spotted Andy Basoo former Retro Cars magazine deputy and now editor at Banzai, so expect some Japanese focused SEMA coverage from them. Somewhere between baggage reclaim and getting a taxi to our hotel I lost my mobile phone, this wasn't discovered until we reached the hotel check in. Bad times. However we were checking in at The Bellagio. Good Times. Bellagio is like a home away from home when in Vegas, super comfy, super convenient and always helpful staff. A quick attempt to do some jetlag busting napping, then a meal, then staying up as long as we could resulted in us being asleep by 6:30pm (did I mention the migraines?). Next day was a free day so we didn't mind being up really early and we did what we usually do when kicking around in Vegas,.. we went shopping. Before this turns into "what I did on my holidays by David aged 38 2/3rds" I am merely setting the scene for what might be the most important accidental genius decision when visiting SEMA so bear with me. Eventually our tiredness defeated us and we were in bed by 8:00pm and soundly asleep by 8:01pm

SHOW DAY!

A good solid eightish hours later and we slowly roused ourselves. We headed down to get breakfast at about 6:30am, Vegas doesn't care what time it is and will serve you what you want whenever. Loaded up on carbs and maple syrup we grabbed our show bags (water, camera, list of people to see, sweets etc.) and headed for the shuttle bus. The first one of these was at 7am, it arrived at about 10 past, we got on it along with four other people and fifteen minutes later we were at Las Vegas Convention Center. Here we learned two important things about SEMA, firstly it doesn't open until 9am. Secondly it has a massive set of our door displays. They are pretty much a car show in their own right. We learned a third thing over the next hour and a half, car people get up late!

The outside

Don't bore us, get to the chorus... so here it is the first set of cars we saw outside, all lined up for the Optima Batteries Ultimate Street Car Challenge.

First car, first photo

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Weirdly I think of these boxy yanks as the quintessential US street drag car

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

It seems the challenge attracts a wide array of cars

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

A closer look at the moody Camaro

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Woo! Some retro German machinery lurking in with the pro touring stuff

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

and a Pinto looking all coy and innocent

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Pickup trucks that need wings are clearly the best thing ever

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

The engine up there belongs to this slice of meaty Scandinavian butchery

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

My personal fave from this selection (curse word son of Melba Toast right here)

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Although this rivetted arch Starion (Conquest if you are and American) was a close second

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


This line up of cars was between the entry area where the bus dropped us off and the escalator to the main halls which weren't open yet, we were pretty pleased to have started the day like with these, but still had an hour to kill, we figured we'd head inside and like true Brits attempt to find somewhere to have a cup of tea ... turns out we needn't have worried, there was plenty more to see before the show opened, more of which in a little while....

[HoTWire]

Bryn has done a write up on the Optima Batteries Street Car Challenge here : www.speedhunters.com/2014/11/the-optima-challenge-where-street-cars-go-to-fight/

More SEMA action heading your way this evening.

[simonslapstick]

Nice to see some images from the show! I was there working for ULTRA4 Racing (offroad racing series over here) and only got to spend about 3 hrs on the show floor..... And that was in the offroad section!

[rmad]

Yay!

When's the next instalment?

[HoTWire]

Nov 13, 2014 19:05:23 GMT rmad said:

When's the next instalment?

NOW!

Outside, ROUND 2

But first...

Traveling through a long grey tunnel and down a flight of stairs in our very British quest for tea and I spied this in the reception area of the venue, and I was happy in ways that only some people will understand.


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

That ^^^ is the Black Pearl, built by Rick Dore based on a Jaguar chassis it was build for James Hetfield of popular beat combo Metallica... you can read all about it here : www.hotrod.com/cars/featured/1412-the-black-pearl/ . In the flesh it is an incredible piece of work, just beautiful.

Keeping on the Rock and/or Roll vibe, next to it was this :


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

33 Ford 3 window built for ZZ top's Billy Gibbons by So Cal Speedshop. So a true celebrity car in terms of owner and builder.

At this point I noticed that out the front there appeared to be a few cars parked up, so we abandoned the tea-to-kill-time idea and headed outside back into the morning sun (which is my excuse for the occasionally rather poor photos.

Actual Outside *Warning this will contain modern content as well as old stuff... sorrynotsorry.

First up is one of my very favourite things in the whole world, slammed pickups. This one was so so very clean and well screwed together


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

WAIT .. WAIT ... scroll back up and admire it some more, it is so pretty.





okay are you done?



Good ... now this (it is modern and it was next to the truck)


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

This was a bit of a theme for the show and I rather flippantly dismissed it by the end of the day, Rocket Bunny kit + air + wheels on various modern Japanese coupes. It was fairly ubiquitous, but you know what, it really does work style wise, a kind of meaty reaction to the smoothed 'stance' scene I guess.


Talking of modern things with wide arches

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

I have no idea why I like this so much, but I went back to look at it a number of times, I don't even like the base model, but this just seemed right some how.


Enough of that, time for my current favourite things in the entire world


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

MINI TRUCK ARE AWESOME


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Seriously ... so awesome ... 2015 year of the minitruck!

Keeping to a theme, Lowrider magazine had a display, I'm sure it was too early for the bikini 'babes' that seem to infest the show to turn up so I got to take some 'babe' free photos

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Mirror mirror on the floor, who is the greenest of them all?

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


Now here is something I have to apologies about... I only have the one picture of this car, the light was harsh, and I was too busy looking at it to take many photos of it. When my lovely lady wife asked me what my favourite car of the show was, this was it! :


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

I can't even find any more pictures of it online either

To make up for it have this that was also with the Lowrider Magazine lot I believe, judging by their facebook


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

... and finally for this bit have a couple of Hot Wheels cars built in to actual real cars


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

There is A LOT more to come so stay tuned to channel HoTWire SEMA trip.

In the next installment, mind melting hot rods and customs and kustoms...

[rmad]

Luverlee!

[HoTWire]

Rods and Sods

No not the erstwhile UK rod and custom forum, but another selection of outside vehicles this time with a bit of a hotrod theme, plus some other kind of related things

This was pretty fabulous, very straight, well put together and just the right level of customised

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

The chaps that owned/built/managed this were swarming around it and then all moved aside so I could take my photo, which was very nice of them (I'm assuming they were something to do with Scotts Hot Rods as they are the people that built it)

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Now here is a thing, apparently you don't call it a rat rod, it was certainly striking even with all the other machinery around it vying for you attention.

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

WelderUp had a few cars on display, almost cartoonish in proportion

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

You can read/see more about some of these cars here : www.welderup.com/news/builds

Something a bit more tradition here from the folk at So Cal Speedshop to advertise the SEMA Action Network which is an interesting aspect of what they do as an organisation:

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Fittingly it was nose to nose with a trad drag rail (engine in front of driver, axle in explody danger of death/maiming position)

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

Although this doesn't get to claim top speed for the event as it was just along from this

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


It isn't all extreme, extreme, extreme, some of the cars on display are just really well built rods/customs/cars rather than cars that jump up and down to be looked at

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


However some manage to be subtle and to grab your attention, this was hell of a car

SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr


SEMA 2014 by Retro Rides, on Flickr

So smooth, those wide fenders and tucked wheels on air (notice the Accuair placarded by the front wheels), colour choices, details details details... gah, I loves it.


Up next the last of the outside stuff, including the tackiest car I've ever seen...

[VadGTI]

FYI Starion is correct for the US as well . They were sold as Conquests by Chrysler and as Starions by Mitsubishi .

[ratchart]

Some pretty spectacular stuff there (and on your Flickr page). The good thing is that you've captured the diversity of the event. I've been reading reports on SEMA in magazines for years but they usually concentrate on cars within the remit of whichever mag happens to cover it, so I like seeing all those different vehicles all together.

Good for us mortals who'll probably never get to see it all for real.

[usedabused]

More on this please!!!

[stevek]

Wow, so many cool machines and your not even in the doors yet! Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

Personal pick of the bunch so far.. 1) The Metallica JagRod. 2) The greyishblue over cream Lowrider estate (have no idea what it is but its cool).

[Dez]

Nov 15, 2014 17:35:24 GMT usedabused said:

More on this please!!!

its a packard. '38 i think. although i thought they only made a 5 window coupe- but maybe thats the point?

EDIT- one piece screen makes it a '36 so they did make a 3-window.

[HoTWire]

Nov 15, 2014 23:24:59 GMT Dez said:

its a packard. '38 i think. although i thought they only made a 5 window coupe- but maybe thats the point?

EDIT- one piece screen makes it a '36 so they did make a 3-window.

So close... it is a 37, built by G3 Rods : www.g3rods.com .. some more pictures here : www.g3rods.com/gallery.php?cat=builds&id=g3_packard and some more of it from SEMA here : www.stanceiseverything.com/2014/11/2014-sema-showstopper-g3-rods-37-packard-custom-classic/

Got some errands to run and bits to do then I'll be back for more updates

[usedabused]

Nov 16, 2014 11:32:14 GMT HoTWire said:

Nov 15, 2014 23:24:59 GMT Dez said:

its a packard. '38 i think. although i thought they only made a 5 window coupe- but maybe thats the point?

EDIT- one piece screen makes it a '36 so they did make a 3-window.

So close... it is a 37, built by G3 Rods : www.g3rods.com .. some more pictures here : www.g3rods.com/gallery.php?cat=builds&id=g3_packard and some more of it from SEMA here : www.stanceiseverything.com/2014/11/2014-sema-showstopper-g3-rods-37-packard-custom-classic/

Got some errands to run and bits to do then I'll be back for more updates

Cheers fella's!!

37 Packard then and its simply stunning.......

[Stig]

It's already been said but still, great write up and really looking for to the next update!

[HoTWire]

Nov 15, 2014 17:21:47 GMT ratchart said:

Some pretty spectacular stuff there (and on your Flickr page). The good thing is that you've captured the diversity of the event. I've been reading reports on SEMA in magazines for years but they usually concentrate on cars within the remit of whichever mag happens to cover it, so I like seeing all those different vehicles all together.

Good for us mortals who'll probably never get to see it all for real.

Thanks, it is interesting I realised whilst I was over there that there is no 'retro' scene asuch, everything is kind of compartmentalised, there are a few brands or suppliers that cross over various areas, but there doesn't seem to be anything like the Retro scene we have in the UK and Japan. I may see if we can get a little something something going to represent our bit of cross section of the older car world, Mrs. HoTWire observed it was either hot rod/custom or modern modified thing for 90% of the event. I can see why individal magazines can cover the event from only one angle, however I think it does do it a bit of a disservice as the event is great because of its range from modern to vintage and then the hidden gems for folk like us