Table of contents for May/June 2025 in SEMA Magazine

When our industry gathered for the 2024 SEMA Show this past November, it did so amid one of the most closely watched elections in U.S. history. The results of that election continue to reverberate, with a flurry of nonstop activity in Washington, D.C., since the new administration entered the White House in January. With new administrations come new challenges and, notably in this case, new opportunities. And SEMA, your trade association, has been seizing the moment. Even before the 2024 election cycle, SEMA and PRI were significantly ramping up our government- and public-advocacy initiatives. We are now engaging lawmakers at an unprecedented pace, advocating on our members’ behalf in the halls of Congress and in statehouses across America. We have also upped SEMA PAC support to state and federal candidates…

The aftermarket industry has long lamented—and opposed—government overreach, and SEMA has led the charge on the industry’s behalf for decades: “Legislators just won’t leave the automotive hobbyist alone. There isn’t a sector of the automotive hobby, including street rods, motorsports, restoration and particularly the modification of late-model automobiles, that isn’t under attack from some regulatory or legislative quarter.” So said then-SEMA Chairman of the Board Ron Coleman in 1997 when he announced the launch of SEMA’s first-ever consumer awareness program. “The only way we can stop these indiscriminate actions is to enlist the help of grassroots enthusiasts and to do that we are obligated to explain these issues and tell them how to counteract them. And a consumer awareness program will get the ball rolling,” he declared. Most notably, that…

It’s hard to believe the 2020s are half over. It’s already mid-decade, and we’ve seen everything from a global pandemic, supply-chain meltdowns and the lagging but progressing electrification of the auto industry. Things have calmed down a bit, but the automotive industry is poised to experience a transformation unlike anything it’s encountered in its more than 100-year history. Perhaps the biggest challenge will be handing off the hot-rodding torch to a new generation of fans and producing enough skilled techs to fill the tremendous demand needed by the modern OEM and aftermarket industries. Many old-school car enthusiasts have slowly been fading away. Although senior guys still are a key demographic for the hot-rodding industry, anyone that has been to an old car show recently will know what we’re talking about.…

Celebrating 19 years of incredible off-road racing, King of the Hammers (KOH) roared back to Johnson Valley, California, earlier this year. Often referred to as “the world’s hardest single-day off-road race,” KOH continues to grow and morph as it entertains thousands of thousands of race fans. A yearly tradition, KOH has become an off-roading paradise for racers and enthusiasts alike. Taking place on Means Dry Lake, the southernmost entrance to the Johnson Valley off-highway vehicle (OHV) area, the KOH venue features big boulders, dry lake beds, rolling hills, steep mountains, silt-ridden areas and everything in between. Elevations range from 4,600 ft. at Hartwell Hills to 2,300 ft. at Melville Dry Lake. Meanwhile, what usually is a dusty, open lakebed transforms into “Hammertown,” a place where more than 100,000 racers, spectators,…

It’s not often that a mechanic is considered a household name. But having built a subscription army of more than 10 million and counting, this man has established himself as the go-to, one-site-fixes-all resource for anyone looking to tackle automotive repair. The recent recipient of SEMA’s Content Creator of the Year award, ChrisFix is passionate about automobiles, fishing and, perhaps above all, people. We recently sat down with ChrisFix to learn more. SEMA Magazine: When and how did your passion for cars begin? ChrisFix: It actually began with boats. I love fishing. When I was a little kid, my parents decided to get a small boat so we could go fishing, go to the beach and cruise around. To afford the boat, my dad and I would work on it.…

STATE UPDATE CALIFORNIA—PROPOSITION 65: In December, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) finalized updates to its SEMA-opposed amendments to Proposition 65. These amendments will significantly impact the automotive aftermarket industry, including manufacturers, distributors, retailers and out-of-state companies selling in California. A major change is that warnings must include at least one specific chemical, replacing the previous option to use a generic short-form warning with no listed chemicals. Notably, businesses now have three (instead of two) years to implement the revised short-form warning requirements. CONNECTICUT—INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE BAN: Connecticut lawmakers introduced a SEMA-supported bill to permanently decouple the state from California’s motor-vehicle emissions laws. Connecticut, as a California Air Resources Board (CARB) state, had sought—and failed—to phase out all new sales of internal combustion engines (ICEs) by 2035. In…

What draws the most excitement and foot traffic at the annual SEMA Show in Las Vegas? That’s up for discussion, but a serious contender would be the Show’s Battle of the Builders (BOTB) Presented by Mother’s Polish—a car-building competition like no other. Apart from the glamorous vehicles and incredible fabrication work on display, people enjoy the details and stories behind the vehicles and the teams that brought them to life. Classic Car Studio (CCS) Speed Shop from St. Louis, Missouri, has an interesting one for their BOTB entry. Throughout the 2024 car show circuit, CCS owner Noah Alexander and team traveled around showcasing one of their latest complete builds: a ‘68 Dodge Charger R/T. And one of their final stops of the year brought them to the SEMA Show’s BOTB…

It’s been said many times that the only thing saving an engine from destruction is a film of lubricant, a few thousandths of an inch thick, that keeps crucial moving surfaces from impacting each other and seizing. Or the only thing that makes brakes work is the fluid that courses though their hydraulic system. For such absolutely essential products, promotion is paramount. The means for doing so have evolved considerably as the media landscape has changed in the past decade or thereabouts. Manufacturers that serve the automotive community have greatly adjusted their marketing strategies for fluids in recent years. The performance properties of lubricants and other fluids are enhanced by research, development and testing at the manufacturer level. From there, it’s a process of getting the products into the hands…

By now you’ve probably heard that Google has once again backed down from its threat to eliminate third-party cookies from its Chrome browser, triggering sighs of relief from advertisers—and inflamed diatribes from privacy advocates. Employed by ad tech companies to track where you go on the web (and what you do once you get there), cookies have been used since the mid-’90s to create a profile of your internet buying habits so that goods and services providers can better target you with advertising. However, due to privacy concerns, Google had vowed to eliminate third-party cookies from its Chrome browser in 2025. But then, as it has already done many times in previous years, the tech titan yet again decided to hang onto the tech for the foreseeable future. Instead, the…