SEMA AND AAPEX SHOWS

The Lay of the Land

Lots of great customized vehicles. Too many to highlight here, and in so many categories. The show was not limited to hot rods, muscle cars and trucks. There were sports cars, off road buggies, armored cars, a Japanese kei car or two, and even a spaceship. In the race car category: stock cars, Indy cars, dragsters, GT racers, offroad trucks, Bonneville streamliners, drift cars, and time attack machines.

So many of those vehicles were reimagined in new ways. A couple I’ll mention: The Ringbrothers 1971 Aston Martin, ‘Octavia’. A vehicle brand too precious to widen-out and give it a resto-mod treatment? Not anymore. And the stunning Gray Madder, a Chevy Nomad crossed with BMW’s Neue Klasse design sensibility to create a new aesthetic. 

Lots of Action

It was obvious that attendees wanted to interact with the factory reps from the auto manufacturers. The Ford Performance parts booth and the grand MOPAR display saw lots of action, as did Honda HRC, Toyota TRC, and Nissan’s NISMO. Meanwhile General Motors and its GM Performance parts remained missing, leaving Scoggin-Dickey trying to take up the slack.

SEMA’s Future Tech corner again showed off a diversity of forward-thinking vehicle technology, including hydrogen power. Kudos to Luis Morales for organizing the display and presentation stage. One of those hourly panels, ‘Solving the Hard in HardTech’ was organized by newly announced 2025 SEMA Person of the Year, Dean Case. Good to see veteran journalists John Dinkel and Edmund Jenks there taking in the tech talk, along with Eddy Treto from the SEMA Garage.

Ongoing Changes

There was a sprinkling of 1980’s colors and graphics on several show vehicles. Remember the blinding fluorescent orange, yellow, and green paints, along with neon-glow effects? They may be creeping back into vehicles and clothing.

Getting around to all the halls was hampered a bit by the Convention Center’s facelift construction still going on (complete by CES time), and several escalators under repair. Not ideal for older attendees, but I did notice many more rented power chairs in use, sometimes creating their own traffic jams. I don’t know the requirements to use one of those chairs, but for some middle-aged riders it seemed that just having a beer belly was qualification enough. A mobility trend at trade shows?

GETTING TO THE AAPEX

But my main mission this year was getting to the AAPEX (Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo) show. After bypassing it for a least a decade, I wanted to get back. So close, yet so far. Once one gets focused on seeing every possible bit of SEMA, you dread getting on the bus over to the Sands Convention Center, oops, now called the Venetian Expo.

Everyday Products

AAPEX has been going on as long as I can remember, as the home of the not-so-performance-oriented, not-so-specialty automotive product exhibitors. Here are the relatively mundane products for regular DIY guys working on their car, or professionals in shops. They have oils, filters, jacks, tools, and even some big truck repair items; I saw replacement truck pistons bigger than paint buckets, and radiators the size of hotel room mattresses.

Replacement batteries? They had them. Wiper blades? Yep. Filters. Lubricants. Shocks. Brake disks and pads. I never realized that so many brake makers existed. But as a frequently worn out item, it makes sense. However, I don’t know that want to trust my ride’s emergency stopping capability to a replacement brake caliper I saw named ‘Soon’. I want to stop ‘now!’ This hardware was in sharp contrast to the nearby Brembo F1 brake on display.

AAPEX was so fascinating to me. On the main floor, all the booth displays looked professional with first-rate signage and lighting. Even at the back of the hall, no more card tables with a black tablecloth, and limp cardboard name plaque clipped to curtain backdrop. This was clearly not a second-rate affair. This is a first class show, attracting some exhibitors away from SEMA.

Going Global

Unlike the SEMA Show, AAPEX featured a broad mix of international exhibitors. Different countries bragged about their place in the auto parts supply chain and showed their wares. Brazil, Turkey, Italy, Jordan, India, …plus many Asian countries of course.

It was also an odd mixture of established brands we know, and others, not so much so. But they stood side by side. Interstate Batteries’ booth with images of Joe Gibb’s NASCAR Cup car was next to someone selling replacement, plug-and-play battery packs for your hybrid.  There was a little name confusion at times, like the Valeo booth near the Veleo booth.

New Adventures in Branding

Brand licensing is a big deal in general these days, and plenty of that was on display at AAPEX. One company offered a Mattel Hot Wheels branded steering wheel cover. But if that didn’t suit, there was also Barbie wheel cover, along with a Frozen theme version. Armor All, the slippery-product people had their name slapped on a solar-powered, backup camera kit for some reason.

And more licensing was going on. I saw Goodyear branded wiper blades. OK, that kind of makes sense because the actual blade is rubber. But then there were Pennzoil branded wiper blades. Did they have an extra ‘lubricating strip’ like a Gilette razor blade? And what, no Barbie Blades?

Swag and Swagger

AAPEX also had a throwback feel in many ways. When’s the last time you saw Bardahl and Rislone branded products? (recall those names as sponsors on 1960s Indy cars?).

Like the old days, booth giveaways were plentiful. I had hats and T shirts pushed into to my hand. There was a popular plush toy llama, which I passed on. And a coin bank (for saving discontinued pennies?). Goodyear had so many bags, magnets, and lanyards to give away that they featured a huge bin that looked like a Midwestern hog farm feeding trough, encouraging the unashamed to grab fistfuls of the free trinkets. Which they did (see John Grafman's The Golden Era of Automotive Press Kits).

The first thing that told me that there was still a wild west element to this show, was right as I walked in the door. In the aisle, right next to the giant Bosch booth was a young lady with a suitcase, pleading to become my wiper blade supplier. And if not that, she had a fat catalog from an Asian company selling every other replacement part I could imagine. I thought ‘selling from the aisle’ was banned, but here she was, undisturbed, just a few feet from the wiper blades that Bosch was selling.

Down Under

Then it was time to look at the downstairs hall, which had a much different vibe. It was relatively quiet in the exhibitor rows. Here were many lower tier parts suppliers with no traffic, after having spent money to come to the US, at risk of ICE encounters. Nice people, wanting to engage with potential buyers, but the buyer buzz was all upstairs.

However, the lower area also featured the active ‘Joe’s Garage’. A complete demo and training area for technicians, with vehicles on lifts and equipment to play with. I’d come back for that!

New Products on the Block

When it came to New Products, SEMA had a football field sized area in the South Hall to peruse. That was a show in itself, if you had the time for it.

Mothers did catch my attention with a new clay bar tool and a spray-on, rinse-off ceramic finish. I’m thinking, perfect last-minute items to prepare your old car for sale.

I was also impressed by the new Bestop E-Top electric convertible top for the Ford Bronco. A pretty slick conversion for less than five grand.

Start-Ups to Note

But I am one to gravitate more to the ground level, start-up company products found in the APPEX Show, like these three, all looking for distribution partners:

The OilOx container kit for DIY oil changers. It’s a patented design, expandable plastic bag in which to funnel the draining oil. Close it with the screw-on cap and take it to your local recycling center. No pan to wipe out.

The ISSE Snow Sock. It’s like a slip-on cloth shoe bootie that surrounds your tires. But its surface texture is designed to give you extra traction in snow. As an alternative to chains, it is good up to 35 MPH. Oh, and it is licensed to use the Goodyear brand name. I could see it being handy for show cars, to keep the tires and wheels clean when loading, unloading, and rolling into position.

And then there was this, a line of car care cleaners and polishes ‘for men’ from Brazil, by Centralsul. These macho products are scented with the fragrances of different countries and cities. With their old-timey, macho graphics, I found them to have a clever marketing twist.

Optima ‘O’ Bag

If the already bulging ‘best new product’ categories were to ever include give-away bags, my vote would have to go to Optima this year. Their Optima ‘O’ bag, whose combination of giant size, with handles just long enough to fit over the head and hang around the neck, made it a perfect, impromptu ‘sandwich board’ promotional campaign. Nicely done Optima!

Final Words

In conclusion, the SEMA and AAPEX Shows proved again to be great hunting grounds to discover what is new, trending, and coming soon, from so many creative minds in the automotive scene. They offer so much more than a person can cover in only one week; I wish SEMA and AAPEX ran for two!