Smart Car Wrapping

SEMA Show Highlights Green Technology, Smaller Vehicles But Dodge Challengers, Chevrolet Camaros Highlight Muscle Car Roots.

With gas prices and the economy being what they are, we reckoned this year's SEMA would be pretty much overrun with microbots. Sure, there's more smarts than you can shake a stick at, and since this is the first year the smart has been available in North America, SEMA builders have been having a field day with it.

Still, the smart is after all one of those cars that pretty much is its own punchline, and since a lot of the goofier treatments (like Batmobile and John Deere) are drawing almost entirely on the novelty factor for their effect, we're guessing the car will seem stale by the time next year's show rolls around.

So where are all the microcars, then? One issue is really that there are no small cars, and while we've certainly seen a smattering of Fits and Yarii, even subcompacts these days are decidedly blimpy. I guess we'll have to wait for the new Fiat 500,

Chevy Beat, and Ford Fiesta to drop before we see a true micro-mini invasion at SEMA. Stay tuned!

Green Machines     
By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

In the midst of an extravaganza that tends to emphasize eye-flattening horsepower and gratuitous fuel consumption, it was pretty funny to run across a whole corral of green vehicles under the cringe-worthy banner "Making Green Cool." While it's a header that seems at first to protest too much, there were actually some pretty cool rides on display which fit the bill—sorta—for eco-friendliness.

The two major themes were green racing performance—like this E98-fueled, NASCAR-engined '68 Camaro, finished in water-based primer, which will take a crack at the Bonneville land-speed record on E98 ethanol—and gigantic alt-diesel trucks, like the "Vegistroke" Superduty, which runs entirely on waste vegetable oil.

Of course, the underlying message is that you can go "green" without sacrificing anything, which is a nice sentiment. Hell, it's not like anyone's ever tried to say that SEMA's about being realistic! 

Pony Car Wars 

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

The pony cars wars are definitely on. Hey, maybe gas prices will keep going down. And maybe the Big Three will survive after all. Who knows? But the Challenger and Camaro rule SEMA right now. There are fifty bizillion Challengers, and the Camaro absolutely dominates the GM booth.

And don't count the Mustang out, either—Ford used SEMA to launch their new Cobra Jet Mustang, a purpose-built drag car with a 5.4-liter V8, A/C delete, 9-inch rear end and your choice of a 6-speed manual or 3-speed automatic transmission with SFI bell housing.

Vinyl Wraps 

By Katherine Helmetag

AKA atomicalex

I guess paint really is over. Not one, but five different companies were exhibiting large-scale vinyl graphics intended for "wrapping" cars

Nissan GT-R 

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

You can't swing a dead cat at SEMA this year without hitting a Nissan GT-R. Ben Schaffer thinks there are about 40 GT-Rs at SEMA this year.

This is especially impressive given that fact that the GT-R has only been available in the US for a few months, and that Nissan didn't exactly go out of their way to make this car easy to modify.

Of course, that didn't stop folks like Ben, who has two GT-Rs here—one in the Toyo booth, and one in the Mobil 1 booth.

Source

marketwatch.com

Car Domain-Blog