More SEMA wrap-up
Well, being that I worked the booth most of the time I didn’t get to wander around like I had wanted to. I did meet some great folks who had great questions about our products… and even their own vehicles. One guy came to me a little frustrated and confused saying that the guys in the GM booth couldn’t answer any of his questions on the changes to this year’s iteration of the Duramax LLY or LBZ, and get this… they told him to go ask Banks because they know more about it than they did. Wow, it’s nice to be recognized by your peers. Turns out, they were right and the gent and I went over the changes from the cooling system to the block. He left pretty satisfied.
And speaking of GM, boy did they have some hot cars. The had several small Ecotec powered vehicles that caused a good deal of drool. The Saturn Sky and the Pontiac Solstice were on hand and anyone who won’t admit they want one is either dead or a liar. Talk about a wide demographic… folks 16 to 65 are going to want one. They showed off two Solstice vehicles (Solstices? Solticeses?), one bone stock, and one as a turbocharged coupe. What a killer platform! That thing’ll be a track eating, tire-burning drift monster next year. You’ll see.
The Ford booth had something I had never seen at the SEMA show before: a dyno that had a supercharged Mustang on it. The cool part was that anyone could put their business card in a pot and see if they were the lucky ones to be called to do a drag strip simulation on the dyno. This happened every hour… and sounded sweet! What a great way to get attention. We also had a few trucks in there with our power products on them. One of them even won a Beast of Show award from Ford.
Chrysler’s booth was good, but nothing to write home about. They did have a tricked out version of their new Neon replacement, but that thing will take a while to get accepted. They did have some mean looking Vipers, which usually kicks things go up a notch.
Believe it or not, we actually had an exhaust system on a Honda. Rub your eyes and read that again… a Honda and it was in their booth no less. It was on a tricked out Ridgeline. Boy did that look and sound good! Hope it goes into production soon (hint).
Well… I’ve jabbered on enough. I will say this about what I was able to see: the show seemed more professional this year. For years the show pushed the T and A factor to the acceptable limits, but that wasn’t the case this year. Well, that is except for the tire and wheel section. Don’t get me wrong… I love beautiful women, but it kind of gets in the way of doing business when you feel too bashful or distracted to see the product.
