6 Major Trends at SEMA 2015

The sheer volume of outrageous rides and cool parts makes the meaning of SEMA, the nation’s major aftermarket auto show, difficult to grasp. But upon reflection, we were able to identify six major trends at the 2015 show, which wrapped up a few days ago.

1. Multi-colored LED Lighting

Remember when neon “underglow” was all the rage? Before it was banned for causing confusion with emergency vehicles, you could make your car a rolling Times Square with any imaginable color lighting. Color-changing LED headlights might face similar legal issues, but that didn’t stop several booths from adding them to their show cars. Examples included a bagged Chevy pickup and a Dodge Viper drift car.

2. Light Weight Roadsters

For generations, hot rodders wanting to go faster have minimized unnecessary stuff on their cars. The same strategy could be found at SEMA, where we took notice of the forced-induction build at the Garrett Turbos booth. It started with a 1967 Datsun Roadster. A turbocharged stroker engine from a Japanese-spec Nissan Silvia S15 makes about 350 horsepower, and the whole car weighs less than 2,000 pounds. Kevin Desirello, who built the car in his garage, was named in the Top 21 in SEMA’s Battle of the Builders, an honor he shares with icons like Chip Foose.

It’s easy to stay light when you don’t have any modern safety or emissions equipment on the car. That’s why Mazda’s pair of topless concepts based on the recently released 2016 MX-5 Miata production cars were stars of the show. The more extreme of the two is the Speedster, which not only loses its roof, but also its windshield—in a throwback to racecars of the 1950s. The whole shebang weighs just 2,080 pounds, shaving 250 pounds off of an already light modern car.

3. FrankenDatsuns

Datsuns seemed to be everywhere this year—but looks can be deceiving. Many of them were actually Nissan 240SXs wearing the Rocket Bunny “Boss” kit, which grafts an old school Datsun nose onto one of the most popular drift platforms of the 1990s.

At the Toyo Tires Treadpass, Dominic Le’s “Hakotora” was a Nissan C10 Skyline front clip merged with a 1973 Nissan Sunny Truck, a car-based pickup similar in concept to the El Camino. When named to the Top 21 in the Battle of the Builders, even the judges were confounded enough by it to simply label it a “Datsun Truck” in the official standings.

4. Escape-From-Society Campers

We can’t remember the last time so many outdoorsy concepts were displayed in the main halls at SEMA. The Kia PacWest Adventure Sorento was ready to go off the grid with Fox Racing coilovers, Nitto Trail Grappler tires, and a snorkel for fording deep rivers.

One of the biggest hits of the show was Toyota’s Tonka 4Runner, which looks every bit like a life-size toy truck. What kid wouldn’t want to climb all over it and live in the roof-mounted tent like it was a treehouse?

5. All-Wheel-Drive Monsters

Dodge surprised everyone by outfitting the unabashedly retro of the muscle cars with something that would have been unthinkable with the original Challenger: all-wheel-drive. With aggressive over-fenders and a jutting front lip, the Challenger GT AWD Concept takes the Scat Pack and adds 75 horses. Luckily, its new drivetrain ensures that power will be put to use on the asphalt instead of leaving two wavy black lines on top of it.

Just when you thought Godzilla couldn’t get any deadlier, Nissan shoots it with even more radiation. The GT-R NISMO N Attack Package takes the supercar-killing, 600-horse GT-R NISMO and adds everything from dedicated front and rear limited slip differentials (LSDs) and tougher suspension components, to new carbon fenders and spoiler. The name comes from its assault on the Nürburgring Circuit, where it set a production-car record lap time in 2013.

6. Widebody Kits

Bulging fender flares show no signs of abating in the aftermarket world. They can be found on everything from Lexus RC Fs to Lamborghini Murcielagos, but nowhere are they more prevalent than on Porsche 911s. The Rauh-Welt Begriff kits reached a new level of saturation, always accompanied by loud paint jobs, massive wheels, and at least to or three levels of wing.

The trend extended to classics. The Rocket Bunny “Pandem” kit debuted on a Skyline-powered Datsun 240Z, built and tuned by GReddy, the legendary Japanese tuning house. The owner of this car is none other than Sung Kang, star of several Fast & Furious movies. Along with Ludacris’s Acura, this is the second car owned by a veteran of the franchise. The combination of extreme looks, classic status, and high-quality build garnered the “Fugu Z” the Gran Turismo Best of Show award for SEMA 2015.