SEMA 2006: Specialty Equipment Market Association Exhibition Motoring Channel Staff - 3/Nov/2006 | 
The 2006 SEMA Show featured many crazy cars,
including this 286kW Volvo C30 performance hatch
Honda's normally placid (and boring) Element van has
now got style, with almost 400kW from a twin turbo V6
Jay Leno's EcoJet turbine supercar
has a Cadillac-inspired front cowling
The SEMA show isn't complete without a
Ford Mustang smoking up the rear wheels
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Las Vegas, America — The 2006
Specialty Equipment Market
Association's (SEMA) show in Las Vegas, America, is the biggest
aftermarket and tuning exhibit in the world. It used to be the place
where aftermarket tuners and engine boosting companies would show off
their technology and modifications, but in the last decade the show has
become one of the most anticipated events on the global motor show
calendar. No
where else will you find hundreds of kitted Ford Mustangs, alongside
Dodge Challenger concepts, and hardcore custom vehicles like the 1987
Chevrolet Pickup that can surpass 200mph (322km/h), powered by a 552ci (9.0-litre!)
V6 Detroit Diesel 2-stroke engine running on peanut oil and nitrous. And
the Japanese cars don't miss out either. There's plenty of tuned
Hondas, Mazdas and Nissans, many of which are almost up to the standard
of the more traditional American muscle cars. It's a sight for sore
eyes, to be sure. If you've never heard of the SEMA show before,
and many of our loyal Australian readers may not have, then you're in
for a big treat, because it's all about taking normal cars and
transforming them into completely hair-raising monsters. There's
tuned up Volkswagen GTIs, tricked-out Mazda CX-7s, more Ford Mustangs
than you'd expect (or maybe not?) and quite a few SUVs, including the
Mindfreak Hummer H2. American's
sometimes call SEMA the SuperBowl of the aftermarket industry - Australian's
would probably call it the cricket Ashes of the aftermarket world - but
however you want to explain it, be prepared for the wonderland that is
SEMA. Horsepower, customisation and radical designs are the norm, so be prepare to be gob smacked. Here's a selection of the vehicles from the SEMA 2006 show: This
vehicle will whet the appetite of Golf GTI and Golf R32 owners
everywhere, and will delight fans of the popular vehicle with its
upgraded turbocharged engine, low suspension kit and mouth-watering
bodykit. Is this is a glimpse of an all-new model coming from
Volkswagen? Stranger things have happened. The
epicenter
of Shelby’s high-performance passion is at the 2006 SEMA
performance party in Las Vegas contains three Shelby-badged
Mustangs: one
painted red, one white and one blue. The red car is a GT500 dragster,
an all-out drag racer ready to win any mod-motor class, while the white
Mustang is a GT500 Road and Track, a car that can be driven to work
Monday through Friday and raced at the track on the weekend,
and the blue
Shelby is an all-out competition GT500 race car. All of them are drop
dead gorgeous and seriously powerful. Pony car lovers would be well
advised to check this out. Only 10 years ago, the word Volvo would conjure up images of old men in dull
hats driving like they had a deathwish. But that image is now well and
truly in the Scandinavian company's past, as Volvo has found
Paydirt. That's what Volvo Car Corporation has hit with the highly
anticipated new 3-door C30. Just a few weeks after the car's global
unveiling at the 2006 Paris Motor Show and Australian Motor Show,
Volvo Cars, in conjunction with
three aftermarket tuning companies, unleashed the ultimate expressions
of free will at the annual SEMA tradeshow. And they have to be
seen to be believed - especially the 378kW hot hatch. It's insane! Nissan
showed off a number of customised cars at the SEMA show, including a
range of Versa vehicles, and a pair of AWD vehicles customised by urban
street wear designer Mark Ecko. The ecko unltd. Nissan Pathfinder features a 1960s-style redesign featuring
seamless black leather driver and passenger seats as just one of the many modifications to this arresting vehicle. The
car-mad host of the Tonight Show in America, Jay Leno, pooled his
considerable resources with one of GM's design studios to create the
new EcoJet, a 484kW turbine-powered super car that runs on bio diesel. Take
the new CX-7 crossover SUV, drop it, tune it, spray it and generally
modify the tripe out of it and you're left with the CX-7 Adrenaline,
which looks more like a bulky sports car than an SUV. Built for avid
cyclists, the 224kW modified vehicle sits on massive 22-inch wheels with a
greater-than-stock offset and 285/35 R22 Yokohama tyres, which Mazda says provides an
aggressive look and uprated on-the-road ride and handling. If
you like watching big burnouts, then this car is for you. Built by
Mustang experts Roush, this vehicle shows off the purpose-built drag
kit for the American Ford Mustang. The company says that if a component
didn’t perform as anticipated, failed,
or the Roush engineers saw some type of premature wear the design was
modified and then re-tested on the track. All told, the tuned 'Stang
makes 430 horsepower (320kW) and can achieve quarter mile runs in
the 11.9-second and 113mph range. In
Australia, Honda is known as one of the most conservative car brands in
the country, which makes it's SEMA offering even more stunning. Honda
of America revealed more than a dozen project
and concept vehicles including a tricked up CR-V and a
dorky-but-powerful Honda Element-D mini van outputting 500 horsepower,
or 373kW of power. It's a drift van, and can be seen in two photos
smoking up the rear wheels with ease. One of our favourite rides from the SEMA show was this car, a 402kW modern muscle car that shows off Dodge's new range of
392 cubic inch crate engines, that span carburetted and electronic fuel
injected iterations. Dodge
says that to commemorate the legacy of the 392 engine,
Chrysler Group
and Mopar have unveiled this awesome concept, based on the model seen at the
Detroit 2006 North American International Auto Show. Mitsubishi showed off a number of daring designs at the 2006 SEMA show, including a wild Outlander concept that features 18 speakers, and is capable of loosening dental fillings and deforming contact lenses when cranked up at full volume. Other vehicles included the Baja Raider and the Evolander.
Based on the award-winning (and arrogant) illusionist Criss Angel's TV show Mindfreak, this Hummer H2 is dark, extremely loud, completely customised, and a little
bizarre. Northern Illinois-based
RealWheels Accessories, along with the efforts of over 20 sponsors, had
been working all summer on the Mindfreak H2, and the result shows. Related articles: - SEMA 2004 | 
