The SEMA train is slowly coming to a halt, with today being the last SEMA post that is not centred around one vehicle. Traffic and feedback around the coverage has been phenomenal so far (thanks) so letting it come to an end, and transitioning into the winter content struggle is a little sad, but alas I am mostly at the end of my once bottomless pit of photos.
Of course no Stance Is Everything SEMA coverage is complete without a look at some of the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational (OUSCI) cars so that is where things will get started today before going back to the general show coverage.
Street Car Alley
This year the OUSCI cars at SEMA were housed in a completely new area of the show that I would have missed had I not stumbled upon it Tuesday night while crossing the parking lot trying to catch the bus.
Fighting the urge to reschedule dinner plans around my shooting the cars right then and there, I came back the next day to take a better look at the impressive functional builds, I didn’t get them all but I got a good selection.
Since the event has now come and gone I am able to attach results with each car so you can see how they did as well as how they look.
Randy Johnson’s LS7 powered 1970 Camaro was an exhibition car this year so it didn’t compete but it does look amazingZeke Peterson’s 1000hp ‘GTIRS’ was also an exhibition carI think I over heard that he bought this one complete, and was building anotherI certainly did not expect to see a Ford Pinto entry, Joe Escobar drove his unlikely vehicle to 79th out of 92 competitorsThis 1980 Ford Fairmont was very, very cool. I believe these are based on the Fox chassis which leads me to believe it’s basically a Mustang underneath. Driver Martin Pond finished 74thDan Ballarad tied with Joe for 74th spot in his ’72 NovaKyle Tucker’s Camaro rolls on 10″ wide wheels all round, has an LS under hood, and finished 70thJudging by the Z06 badge I’d say Jane Thrumonds ’64 Stingray is just a bit faster than it was in ’64. She finished 47thRobert Jacksons’ ‘Swedish Ops’ Amazon is not so Swedish powered…that’s an LS you are looking at and it propelled him to 56thChris Smith returned with his awesome C10The 434 small block helped Chris finish 31stIt’s cool to see more import drivers entering the OUSCI, the Evo driven by Todd Earsley finished 7th over all while the Integra finished in the 28th spotI can’t seem to figure out what the wild looking Vette in this picture finished so if anyone knows, let me know in the commentsDan Livezy drove his beautiful, heavily modified, widebody, ’64 Vette into the 26th spot
Sadly I don’t have pictures of 26th through to 1, but I do know that Brian Hobaugh won, who I’m sure you all know drives this:
Around the show in 80 steps
As I knew my last day at the show was coming to a close I really tried to hustle my way around to see as much as I could, of course the second I got on the bus I realized how many things I had missed. It sucks but that is SEMA after all, where seeing it all is impossible.
This Accord tucked Avant Garde wheels so well that these 20x11s almost look smallJob Design keeping it real with a rivet free body kitMaxxis had a race ready M3 in their booth that sat great on Rays wheelsFalken Tires had a a more street going M3 in their boothThe Cement Grey HRE R101 wheels are a great match to the blue, and the teal accents are a great match to bothNot a huge fan of the wheels on this car (though the finish is interesting) but I love the rest of itBisimoto sure does love his big Turbonetics TurbosHonda Groms remind me of my YSR80 obsession, which is badAmerican OG VIP never looked betterThis was pretty cool. I think it was under the hood of a C10 but I can’t quite rememberReally dig this Lexus, nice influence of the more traditional and sporty VIP stylesBC Racing had the Chelsea DeNofa Motorsports e46 in their boothThey also had this NSX on one of their external reservoir BC set upsHot Rod coverage this year has been a little light but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t spare a bit of camera space towards one or two..Kugel Komponents nailed it with this deuce coupeMax Grundy did a lot of (all?) the artwork for this year’s SEMA show and brought his outstanding Pontiac wagon to the show as well
One more SEMA Showstopper post to come, hopefully that will be up Saturday then we say goodbye to the SEMA show until 2015.
