Tabla de contenidos para June 2024 en SEMA Magazine

Last year the state of California did something so uncommon that you could almost call it unprecedented: It threw the automotive community a bone. Assembly Bill (AB) 436 overturned the patchwork of laws that literally made cruising a crime in many cities up and down the Golden State. That victory is heartwarming news if you grew up cruising. A balmy Saturday night on the boulevard was where you met new friends, swapped stories with old ones, grabbed a bite to eat, possibly met your future mate, and definitely checked out what everybody else was doing to their rides. Cruising is so integral to American culture that the guy who did Star Wars made a full-length motion picture about it. But in a legal campaign that began in the ’70s and…

Informal car shows have been around for decades. Before the term Cars and Coffee entered our modern lexicon, many automotive gatherings were “lone-wolf” affairs made up of misfits and outliers. After WWII, hot-rod enthusiasts held informal gatherings at gas stations, diners and drive-ins. More recently, import folks and street racers staged pop-up events in the middle of the night, usually ending with the police joining the proceedings. Eventually, these clandestine affairs emerged out of the shadows and became mainstream car show events. Although the exact birthdate of Cars and Coffee is a bit fuzzy, Donut Derelicts might have been the seminal show that created the blueprint as we know it today. This gathering in Huntington Beach, California, started bringing car lovers together in 1986 and gearheads have continued to meet…

SHUTTERSTOCK.COM Businesses convinced that there are few things more powerful than a customer testimonial on video are in luck. Scores of service providers have cropped up that virtually automate the entire process of creating a video testimonial library—including invitation, collection, editing, hosting and posting to all the social-media networks that matter to your business. Those testimonials also feed into the overall hunger for endorsement video on the web, a genre of promotion known as “social proof,” according to Isaiah Shelton, senior content strategist, Lemonlight, a video marketing services provider. SHUTTERSTOCK.COM And the promotional genre is also yet another indicator of the wild popularity of video in the digital world right now. The report, “The State of Video Marketing 2023” from Wizowl (wizowl.com), for example, found that 91% of video marketers…

FORD PERFORMANCE PARTS & ACCESSORIES FORD PERFORMANCE LOW-PROFILE INTAKE FOR 7.3L GAS ENGINE performanceparts.ford.com An all-new Ford Performance Parts low-profile manifold for the 7.3L Super Duty gas engine. Has 10hp over stock ’20 Super Duty manifold. Utilizes the 92mm GT500 throttle body M-9926-M5292. Designed for better hood clearance for 7.3L engine swaps. Fits the M-6007-73 crate engine. MOUSE BLOCKER MOUSEBLOCKER PRO 110V PLUG IN mouseblocker.com The 12V MouseBlocker PRO is a powerful rodent deterrent designed to protect engine compartments of all types of vehicles. This unit features a proprietary “eviction mode,” hitting at an industry-leading 115dB along with strobing LEDs as an added deterrent. These sell well in repair facilities and auto dealerships doing wiring repairs. MICKEY THOMPSON TIRES AND WHEELS SPORTSMAN S/R mickeythompsontires.com The big sizes are back! The…

Like so many other specialty automotive sectors, the car-care industry has seen a surge in recent years. Fueled first by pandemic lockdowns and now by rising new-car prices that have consumers holding onto their vehicles longer, car owners are rediscovering the joys of hands-on maintenance. The numbers speak for themselves. According to the latest SEMA market research, consumer spending on car cleaning and wax products grew from $1.85 billion in 2019 to $1.97 billion by 2022. The good news for brick-and-mortar is that a majority of car-care products (63%) are still purchased in store, mainly from auto parts and general retail chains. By its very nature, car care remains a home-based hobby focused on immediate gratification. “There’s been an uptick in online purchasing, but there’s still a desire to go…

STATE UPDATE ARIZONA—CRUISING: Arizona has introduced a SEMA-supported bill to allow automobile cruising activities to return statewide. Currently, local authorities are authorized to pass ordinances that regulate or prohibit cruising. This effort follows similar legislation that was approved in California last year. Having passed the full House, the bill now awaits consideration by the Senate Committee on Transportation, Technology and Missing Children. CONNECTICUT—INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES (ICE): The Connecticut legislature has shelved SEMA-opposed plans to adopt California’s ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. This decision comes amid concerns about the feasibility of such a drastic transition, particularly regarding the readiness of the state’s electric grid and charging infrastructure. While lawmakers have abandoned plans to push the ban forward, they will continue to focus on establishing a commission…

It would be easy to assume that today’s electric vehicles (EVs) are a recent trend based on new green technology, but electric power has been around as long as steam propulsion. The first patent for a gasoline-powered car was granted to Carl Benz in 1886, but a mere four years later, William Morrison, a chemist from Des Moines, Iowa, unveiled a six-passenger vehicle with an electric motor capable of a top speed of 14 mph. Much like today’s electric cars, the early versions were for the upper class. Many companies marketed them to women because they were more refined than their gasoline counterparts. “They were marketed heavily to women, so if you were rich, you were in the city you could keep the car charged up,” said Bill Lillie, founder…

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There’s an old saying about how auto racing has been around since the owner of the very first car squared off against the owner of the second one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to believe that, after that race, the two owners formed a club to help each other make their new mechanical contraptions go faster. Car clubs have, in fact, been around since the dawn of the automobile. What’s believed to be the first club, Great Britain’s Veteran Car Club, was founded in 1896, 10 years after Karl Benz introduced the Patent-Motorwagen, the first “modern” automobile. According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), there were 23,000 automobiles in operation in the United States in 1902, and by then some 50 clubs had already been formed. That year nine of…