sema 2012

Global RallyCross is an interesting motorsport. Beginning in 2010 at the X Games, the series races on short tracks made partly of asphalt and partly of dirt, along with a signature variation called the Joker Lap, in which drivers are required to take an alternate, slightly longer route that ...

Party's over, folks. Despite the fact that the city of Las Vegas is a-hustlin' and a-bustlin' 24/7, the lights are officially being turned off here at the 2012 SEMA Show. Thus, our bags are packed and we're getting the heck out of here. In case you missed any of our obsessive coverage of this ...

Scion made a huge investment in the 2012 SEMA show, and its spanking new FR-S coupe, by putting hundreds of cars in the hands of tuners. The result on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center is unmissable, as just about everywhere we turn we find another FR-S peeking out at us. We tried to ...

Imagine, for a moment, this scene taking place way back in the 1960s: "Ford has so much success with the Shelby racing program in the US, they had the new Indy motor that they wanted to get more development out of, they wanted to promote the Mustang more in Europe, and Martini Racing was ...

From the same Dream Build Challenge that brought the DragQouia to the SEMA Show, NASCAR stars Clint Bowyer and Kyle Busch also got involved with the competition hoping to win $50,000 for their respective charities. Instead of building trucks like their NHRA counterparts, Bowyer had a Prius ...

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the SEMA Zone. With apologies to ...

NASCAR driver Tony Stewart is known as "Smoke" to many, and the custom Camaro ZL1 he helped create for SEMA reflects his sometimes mysterious personality. Chevy design manager Dave Ross worked with Stewart to come up with not only the flat red and silver tribal theme, but the custom gray-metallic ...

Who knew the Toyota Avalon could be so... sporty? SEMA isn't just about tuning no-brainers like the Ford Mustang and Scion FR-S, it's about showing what's possible for a wide variety of cars, even seemingly geriatric machines like the big Avalon. But remember, Toyota is seriously considering a ...

If there's one legitimate complaint that can be hurled at the 2013 Lexus GS 350 F Sport, it's that it has no more power than its less-sporty siblings. It's not that 306 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque isn't enough for good performance – as the GS 350's 5.7-second sprint to 60 can ...

It's easy to forget it was Holman & Moody that helped first put a Ford Mustang on track in competition. Well before Carroll Shelby ever spun a wrench on one of the pony cars, H&M served up a set of race engines for Alan Mann Racing. That team took four specially prepared 1964 notchback ...

It is unlikely that anybody has ever accused the Audi R8 GT of being a slow car, but like everything else on display at the SEMA Show – where the unofficial motto should be "if there's a will, there's a way" – Underground Racing has proven that fast can also get faster. Starting life ...

Of all the many Scion FR-S models here on the SEMA floor in Las Vegas – and there are a great many of them, have no doubt – the very purpose-built car from Stout Racing is one that we may hear about again in the future. The Stout Racing team will be campaigning the racy FR-S in the ...

There's no doubt that the Jeep Wrangler is a shining beacon of aftermarket success here at the 2012 SEMA Show. If there's any one vehicle that can stake a claim to challenging the Scion FR-S and Ford Mustang in the sheer-number-of-vehicles contest, it's Jeep's iconic off-roader. So it ...

Chevrolet Performance worked over the Chevrolet Sonic just for this year's SEMA show to create this B-Spec racecar concept. Built to conform to all of rules and regulations of the B-Spec subcompact classes in both the SCCA and the Grand-Am series, the five-door features new coilovers on all four ...

What's so special about the customized Mustang you see above? Well, first of all, it's very well done – nicely designed and assembled with care – but that's not its main claim to fame. In an industry dominated by persons born with both X and Y chromosomes, the XXs don't want to be ...

Quality Metalcraft's CEO Michael Chetcuti has got big plans for the Jeep Wrangler – big enough to seat six, in fact. This QMC Jeep dubbed the JK Six Pak, for obvious reasons, is here at SEMA as a sort of proof of concept project. QMC has married the front portion of a JK Jeep Wrangler ...

We're all still a little taken aback at the sheer number of Scion FR-S mods we've seen at SEMA this year. Not only did the FR-S win the Best of Show award for the Sport Compact class, but based on gross tonnage the rear-drive Scion has got to be one of the most popular models in the tuner world ...

Electric carmaker Fisker has partnered with car-wrapping specialists 3M for an interesting demonstration of what could be at this year's SEMA festivities. As we reported in greater detail earlier, the folks from 3M are wrapping up the Karma in a few fairly wild shades and stripe packages, to have ...

HRE has brought some pretty excellent wheels to market in the past, such as the retro-tastic Vintage Series, bridging old and new in fantastic fashion. The wheel-maker's latest offering is the Carbon Series CF2 Concept, now on display at SEMA. The wheels are not entirely made up of carbon fiber, ...

Acura has used the occasion of this year's SEMA show to unveil a 2013 ILX that is remarkably different from the road-going car that we are familiar with. A far distance from the rather mildly performing street car, this ILX Endurance Racer is actually prepped to race at the grueling 25 Hours of ...