This was my first Sema show but was bummed that there where no European tuners there at all for any of the Marques ,i was really looking forward to checking out all the aftermarket stuff for Porsche,Lambo's & Ferrari.HRE & Akrapovic where the exceptions there where plenty of import tuners & tons of domestic tuners & it just seemed to be the right place to be for the Euro tuners.Of all the sponsors on the right of this page nobody thought it was a good idea to attend not even any of the big guns.I still had a good time as i also love muscle cars & it was Vegas after all but definitely not what i expected & probably skip it next year.

 

I know that Luis from Autodynamica and Mike & Todd from AWE went to SEMA.

 

There is no ROI when you factor in the costs of a booth and revenue lost by having staff at a trade show that attracts an audience focused mostly on domestic cars.

 

I am with Mike on this especially for limited production cars such as Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini. On the other hand, it might be worth a travel to Germany for the SEMA show there. Do they still have that?

 

They sure do. It's the Essen Motor Show.

http://www.essen-motorshow.de/?lang=en

We did that for a few years but stopped going because we were not really seeing anything innovative. It became filled with trends we were already seeing in the U.S.! Plus the exchange rate just got out of hand.

What I do miss are the factory tours H&R would do for their American guests and the partys afterwards. Man, I have stories for days...

Let's just say that if I were to move to Germany, there would be no shot at a career in politics. lol

 

Akram and Sinil from Motorwerks was there as well.

 

I've been to Essen a few times and although I haven't been to SEMA, from the photos it looks like SEMA is a lot bigger and better.

Both shows are very domestically focussed, since most Euro tuners sell most of their stuff in Europe, so you'll see Techart, Ruf, Mansory, Sportec etc but no US Tuners there. The reverse is true for SEMA, few Euro tuners sell enough gear in the US to justify shipping/flying cars and staff and paying stand space.

The worst thing about Essen is they still allow smoking inside, so it's like walking into a nightclub in some of the halls with German Techno music, flashing strobes and smoke that taints your clothes for days.......

The other thing is that Essen is very much a public show so there's also lots of stands there from mainstream European car manufacturers as well, with standard cars from their performance ranges, whereas SEMA is not open to the public.

 

This was my first SEMA show as well. I too thought I would see more aftermarket products for Porsches & euro cars. I think I only saw 3 911’s inside. The Pirelli booth had the Pikes Peak GT3CUP car, Falken Tires had their ALMS 911 RSR, and H&R had a heavily modified 997TT (a privately owned on loan, or rented for the show). Their were a few turbos outside on display, but nothing to mention.

There as a Rahal Letterman BMW ALMS car there that has to be close to one of the best prep’d race cars I have ever seen. It was put together so cleanly words can’t begin to describe it. It must be seen in person to truly comprehend is beauty and execution.

If you wanted to see over-the-top Ferrari’s, Lambo’s, RR’s, and Bentley’s there were plenty to see, not to mention probably every MBZ SL 65 AMG Black ever sold in the America had to be on display somewhere within the compound.

Chevy had a track prep’d Z06 concept car on display. If this goes on sale it should be serious “food for thought” for any track enthusiast. It was a very nice package and I’m sure it will be half the price of a GT3CUP car with a fiction of the operating expense, yet with performance and numbers to out shine a CUP car...very nice.

Agent Forty Seven...yet another serious track toy. Their web site and photos do this car NO justice, a must see vehicle!

All-in-all, still a good show and anyone into cars should really try and attend at least once. I was hoping to see more custom car builders...they must be a different show???

Akrapovic did have a Ti GT3 RS half cage on display, approximate MSRP 6K which should go nicely with their 12+K Ti exhaust system (they said the sound is worth every penny)...hmmmmmm....okay.....????

 

While it was kind of lame that there were barely any 911s, I'm also glad that there werent any GT3s on 22" chrome wheels like they did to the 458s and SLSs