NZ Performance Car

SEMA TOP 10

- WORDS: NICK MAARHUIS / MARCUS GIBSON PHOTOS: BRIAN GOUDE (GRINDER-TV.COM)

TEN OF THE MOST INNOVATE BUILDS FROM SEMA 2014

Not much can be said about SEMA that hasn’t been said before, as it really is one of those shows which lives up to all the hype. The SEMA Show, held at the Las Vegas Convention Centre over November 4–7, epitomizes the American culture of ‘bigger is better’, and the enormity of the show has to be seen to be believed. Every vehicle there has been pushed to its limits to draw people to trade booths. This is understand­able, given SEMA stands for Specialty Equipment Marketing Associatio­n, and predominan­tly this event is an industry trade show, with trade displays for anything and everything automotive. In some parts of the show you can walk past 20 trade booths before finding a custom car, but when you do, you can be guaranteed that every spare ounce of skill, money, time, and creativity has been thrown at it.

Before you book flights to the US for next year’s show, you ought to be aware that it is a trade-only event and it’s not open to the public. As unbelievab­le as this may seem, each and every one of the 60,000 people attending have applied in advance to attend, and have been approved because they work in the automotive industry.

THE SCALE OF THE SHOW IS DIFFICULT TO DESCRIBE, BUT AS A ROUGH IDEA, IT COVERS ABOUT SIX TIMES THE AREA OF

THE ENTIRE V 4&ROTARY NATIONALS

The scale of the show is difficult to describe, but as a rough idea, it covers about six times the area of the entire V 4&Rotary Nationals. The event runs for four days, and you can walk around the entire time, barely stopping, without seeing everything. On top of all the automotive products you could ever imagine — including show cars, race cars, hot rods, lifted and slammed trucks — there are drift demos, TV celebritie­s, top internatio­nal car builders, and countless promotiona­l models.

Alongside our extended coverage on themotorho­od.com, we thought it right to dig deeper into some of the countless standout cars on display, whether or not they’re an import, simply because we think the quality and innovation needs to be seen.

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