sema

LAS VEGAS--Only at the SEMA Show could a car as wildly styled as the Scion FR-S be the least eye-catching ride in a bunch, but that was exactly the case at Scion's booth.

Scion is no stranger to SEMA. The automaker never makes a big fuss (there's no press conference and its booth is best described as humble). However, Scion has consistently showed off some of my favorite concepts during the three years that I've been attending this show.

This year, the star of Scion's show was the new iQ. Four custom examples of the microcompact … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If I told you that a performance car manufacturer has developed a lightweight version of a popular roadster with a tent-style fabric roof, dubbed "Spyder," you might assume that I'm months late with my Porsche news.

However, I'm talking about Mazda, not Porsche, and the car in question isn't the Boxster Spyder, but the Mazda MX-5 Spyder.

The MX-5 Spyder starts with the MX-5 Miata and ditches the retractable roof in favor of a single-panel grenadine-red soft top made by Haartz. Additional weight savings come from the swapping of the lead acid battery for … Read more

Chrome badges look great during the day, but they mostly go unnoticed at night. The opposite is true of illuminated trim; it can look great at night, yet horrible during the day. However, Ford's new illuminated chrome trim should, in theory, look as good at night as it does during the day.

Ford says that it has developed a technique to project light through a chrome finish for small parts and had examples on display at the 2011 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. The particulars of how Ford pulls off this trick of light are beyond me, but the … Read more

LAS VEGAS--As the meme goes, "Yo dawg, I heard you like sports, so we put sports in your car so you can play while you drive."

Kia seems to have taken a page out of late '90s TV show "Pimp My Ride's" book when it commissioned the six custom models unveiled today at the 2011 SEMA Show. This selection of Optima Hybrids, Rios, and a Soul feature designs and accessories that are based on the golf, basketball, surfing, hockey, and, of course, motorsports.

The first model unveiled was a the Hole In One Soul built … Read more

At the annual SEMA Show in Las Vegas, seeing 100 different custom incarnations of big, powerful Ford Mustangs is par for the course. This year, however, Ford is thinking small.

This year, Ford is choosing to focus on the B- and C-segment 2011 Fiesta and 2012 Focus and will be filling its booth with custom examples of each. We got a sneak peek at 10 renderings of these tiny customs and are happy to see that they run the gamut. From high-performance examples by Roush, Steeda, and Cobb Tuning to styling exercises by the ID Agency, M2-Motoring, and 3dCarbon, if … Read more

Wayne gets a ride in Tesla's newest electric car, BMW comes up with a new hybrid, Antuan races in Forza Motorsport 4, and Hyundai preps a mad Veloster for SEMA.

• Tesla Model S Beta 1: A glimpse of the future from the passenger seat

• Kia plans to introduce small EV by year end

• BMW unveils the 5-series hybrid

• Forza Motorsport 4 is a digital playground for car lovers (hands-on)

• Nissan building Juke-R super crossover*

There will literally be hundreds of custom cars and tricked-out trucks filling the halls and parking lots of the Las Vegas Convention Center when the 2011 SEMA Show rolls through between November 1 and 4. (Don't believe me? Check out last year's coverage for a glimpse of the 2010 turnout.) This year, as in years prior, one of those rides will be digitally immortalized as part of Sony/Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo series of racing sims.

People exhibiting or displaying a car or truck at the 2011 SEMA Show can enter their ride in one of five … Read more

The 2011 SEMA Show--the hottest, largest aftermarket automotive show in the world--is but one short month away and with its approach comes a deluge of hot custom cars and aftermarket accessories that will be vying for our attention from the show floor. The first to catch our attention is this hopped-up Hyundai Veloster customized by ARK Performance.

ARK starts with the Veloster's 1.6-liter GDI engine and sporty, but economical, suspension setup but eventually upgrades darn near everything with a jaw-dropping list of performance parts. Power upgrades start with an ARK turbocharger and front-mount intercooler and terminate with a … Read more

When racing teams want to record their vehicle's performance, they usually don't grab a GoPro Hero or ContourHD off of the shelf (although they surely could). Instead they use a system like ChaseCam's DIVA (Data Integrated Video Acquisition), which not only captures video from multiple cameras, but also records from an internal accelerometer, a GPS receiver, and a direct connection to the vehicle's brain via OBD-II/CAN bus. However, up until now and in spite of all of that functionality, the lipstick-size cameras in the ChaseCam system captured only SD video content. This year at the … Read more