We’re coming to the end of my SEMA 2023 content now.
After this post we will be looking at SEMA Fest which was a post event festival.
Today, I wanted to look at the builds that really stood out to me from last year’s show.
There’s no particular criteria to this and I’m not presenting the vehicles in any order. These are simply my favourite vehicles at the show!
First up we have Likuid Kreation’s ‘Chief 42’ 1942 American LaFrance fire engine rat rod which was on the Mother’s Polish stand.
I love an unusual base vehicle for a project and it’s not going to get more unusual than an 80 year old fire engine!
It looks amazing lowered with the big wheels, but I really love that they’ve kept a lot of original details like the siren and the water pumps.
From what I’ve seen, this vehicle will be at a lot of events in the future and they’ll be using it to fund raise for a number of children’s, veteran’s and first responder’s charities which is absolutely brilliant!
This 1970 Dodge Charger drag car was on the Tremec stand and it was stunning!
Since The Fast and The Furious movies I tend to find black Chargers a little clichéd. The dragster stance and wheels really make this one look aggressive though!
The HEMI V8 in this was 572 cubic inches which works out to 9.3 litres!! That’s an incredible size!
I love the rear steer, dual shock absorber set up and the monster truck style tyres on this F250. But what I really love is that it’s wearing a licence plate. I’d love to see that on the road!
The little matching buggy thing was cool too!
The thing that first stood out to me on this military themed truck was the P90 style mirror covers.
The turret on the roof with the twin miniguns and the orange spot lights was neat as well.
A lot of the show trucks have lights in the wheel arches and under the chassis. I noticed this truck had a LED set up around the brake housing. I bet that looks good when it’s going along!
S-Klub LA had a number of cars in the Toyo Treadpass, which you can read about here:https://motorsportformentalhealth.com/2023/11/11/sema-2023-toyo-tires-treadpass/ and a Tesla based 300SL in the EV and Future Propulsion section, which you can read about here: https://motorsportformentalhealth.com/2023/12/08/sema-2023-ev-and-future-propulsion/
They also had this Rezvani Hercules 6×6 outside.
In stock form, these things are a beast! They feature bullet resistant glass and bodywork (radiator, battery and fuel cell are also wrapped in Kevlar), electrified door handles, pepper spray dispensers, smoke launchers, reinforced bumpers and much more!
With the S-Klub LA touch, it’s perfect for the VIP who needs to protect himself from the masses but look cool doing it!
The blue is also a wrap, so if you find yourself needing to drive through the side of a building and falling masonry damages the finish, you can just have the individual panels rewrapped!
Much like the F250 monster truck, what blew my mind about this hot rod is that it’s driven on the road. I saw it parked outside a hotel from the monorail one evening.
Imagine pulling up to a MOT station here in the U.K with a build like this. Incredible!
This 1970s Datsun 620(?) pickup truck with a camper body really caught my attention as it is a really unusual base and it was modified in a modern way but with lots of interesting period correct JDM touches .
It’s got a Hakosuka Skyline front end swap and bosozoku styling with the tilted headlights, external oil cooler and the huge bolt on arches.
The livery is very reminiscent of the Advan livery which I think came about in the 1970s/80s and was on a lot of really cool Japanese race cars.
Then it’s finished on those absolutely stunning stretched carbon fibre turbo-fan type wheels.
It’s also one of those cars that looks really great, but looking at the base I would have never thought to go that route with it. It’s fascinating how inspiration finds different people.
Steer Smarts brought along this wicked Jeep ice cream van called Freeze and I just love the idea of a rock crawling ice cream van out in the desert!
The pink and blue pixel wrap with all the neon signage looks really great too!
It’s a fun show piece and looking through Steer Smarts social media it actually gets used too which is brilliant.
Now, I said I wasn’t doing this in any particular order, but I have saved my favourite for last.
This is the MLZ Garage twin Honda K24 swapped 350Z.
I kept coming back to this car over the course of the week.
It blew my mind that it drives like a normal car – one shifter in the middle controls both gearboxes, both clutches work off of one pedal and the throttle pedal runs both engines. I’m sure it’s not the first time that such a project has been done but it was so clever to me
Obviously it can be driven with one engine shut down too – so it can be rear engined rear wheel driven for sliding about, or front engined front wheel drive for… not sliding about?
It also got my brain ticking over because we have so many front wheel drive hatchbacks in the U.K that would be perfect for this sort of conversion! A twin C20LET powered Vauxhall Nova or Corsa B would be my immediate choice. That would be a fun project for SEMA! If only I had the space, money and talent haha!
A little detail I really liked about this was the tow hitch on top of the cage. I’d love to see this towing a trailer! So cool!
Thanks for reading!
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By Richard Francis
