By Jen

Editor

Hot rods have been making an increasingly strong showing at SEMA in recent years, and even have their own designated "Hot Rod Alley." We found some super-impressive rides out there, including the radically customized Mercules, a 426 Hemi-powered Ford roadster, Chevy’s E85-fuelled Ethanol Coupe, Dynamat’s 50′s-nostalgia ’32 Ford, and a V10 Viper-powered ’57 Chevy. Read all about them at our SEMA 2007 group page, and then vote for your favorite right here in the blog!

By Sean

Editor

The Light Truck category really represented this year, and you could find a solid example in just about every corner of the SEMA halls. The "street truck" and lowrider variety definitely dominated this class, and picking my top five was pretty rough. Eventually, I narrowed it down to the great custom 1965 F150 lowrider in the Directed booth, Kal Customs’ seriously "Kolorful" Toyota Xtra-Cab, the stunning Toyota FJ Runner Concept, Sadistic’s flamed out, frame-layin’ 1995 Tacoma, and the jaw-dropping Leer Chevy Colorado. Head over to our SEMA 2007 group page to get the low-down on our favorites, then hop back here to vote for yours!

By Sean

Editor

I stumbled across these trick custom-painted bottles in the Nitrous Express booth at SEMA. The coolest part? After I scoped out the collection, one the NX guys told me they were painted by Mike Cotton, a good friend of mine back in Illinois! If you have a dream, Mike and his crew at Midwest Images—which specializes in metal fabrication and paint—can realize it! Of the bottles he did for NX, my favorite is the matte black, Von Dutch-style one below. Sure, it looks slick, but a final coat of Alsa Corp’s Soft Touch Clear actually makes it feel smooth and rubberized. Check out more of these beauties over in our SEMA 2007 Forum, and if you like Mike’s work, let Nitrous Express know!

By Rob

Editor-in-Chief

SEMA was crawling with muscle cars, so it wasn’t easy to pick five. But here goes. Of course I gotta include the modern day ‘Cuda from the Mopar booth. Then there were the Chevelles–this 427-powered ’67 and this  6.6L Duramax twin-turbo diesel ’70. The toughest car I saw was probably this Hot Rod Drag Week winning ’67 Camaro. And for the Ford fans, how about this Nemesis Motorsports ’67 Mustang. You can see more pics of all these cars on our SEMA 2007 group page.

By John

Editor

As I’ve said before, I felt like a kid in a candy store at SEMA. So it was pretty hardto narrow the Exotics/Other category down to just five finalists. But after carefulconsideration, I picked the Gemballa Mirage GT,the Tesla Roadster,this trick Lamborghini Superleggara, the Alfa-inspired Dragon and the VolvoCaresto Speedster. If you want some more info on these wicked rides, head over to the SEMA grouppage, otherwise, cast your vote now!

Opinion Polls & MarketResearch

By Jen

Editor

Check out this ride-along John and I did at SEMA in this awesome ’05 GTO built by Wheel to Wheel Powertrain. The 620-horsepower Goat runs a Rotech-supercharged LS2, bored out to 389. And our awesome driver, Gautam, didn’t knock over a single cone, despite (what felt like) multiple donuts. I wish our audio equipment had done justice to the sound of this mean ride!

By Rob

Editor-in-Chief

Well, we’ve only been back a few days and we’re already trying to figure out how we can do a better job next year. So let us know what you thought of our 2007 SEMA coverage–from the SEMA blogs to our video coverage to our photos to our booth. We’d also like to know what you thought of our project cars–the Scion and the Focus. So take our survey (don’t worry, it’s short!) and leave your e-mail address if you want a chance to win a CarDomain t-shirt (we’ll send t-shirts to five people at random).

Thanks to everyone who has responded so far. If you haven’t taken it and you want a shot at a t-shirt, better hurry up and take our survey now. We’ll be reading the comments and contacting folks about t-shirts on Monday.

By John

Editor

While we were down at SEMA, I got a chance to talk to Alexander Roy, the crazy [Expletive Deleted] who recently broke the New York to LA speed record in his hyper-trick M5. Total travel time? A blistering 32 hours and 7 minutes! As it turns out, he’d apparently tried to contact CarDomain about sending someone to document the ride, but some wires got crossed, and we never actually got to talk turkey. Alex, I can assure you, if I’d gotten your call, I would have thrown a temper tantrum until the brass would have let me come along. Seriously! Anyway, he’s over the accidental diss, and even hooked us up with a couple copies of his memoir, the Driver. Look for a review here soon, and watch the interview for tips on how to prepare for a cross country blast!

By Jen

Editor

The off-road offerings at this year’s SEMA show were truly over the top, consisting almost entirely of new or almost-new trucks and Jeeps decked out to the nines in the hottest four-wheeling gear. Take a look at our pics and specs on each of these monsters in the SEMA 2007 group page, and then vote on your favorite! We’ve got a gorgeous Jeep JK with cameras at each wheel for rock-crawling; a flamed Silverado with a dump-truck bed; an ultra-burly ’08 F250 with goodies by Warn; an adjustable long-arm Wrangler by Pro Comp; and an insane Suburban with a 12" lift. Check them out!

By John

Community Editor

Ok, this is hard to admit, but I’ll do it. When I’m not thinking—which is most of the time—I have a tendency to call every hi-riser a donk, which is wrong. Maybe it’s because donk is so fun to say? Fortunately, Brian Scotto from Rides Magazine didn’t rub it in when I fumbled the nomenclature at their booth during SEMA. Thanks, dude. Anyway, the "Money Box" was super-dope, and while the windows were completely opaque—because the interior wasn’t quite done—there was so much detail, it was impossible not to be impressed. As Brian said, the airbrushed 100 dollar bill on the trunk is so perfect it’s practically counterfeiting. Check out the video.