Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the AllTalk Car Podcast. This is another part two of our American Specials. This time I'm joined again with Joe from the last episode. Hi, Joe.
Hey Peter, how you going? I'm good, mate. We have a chance to get a little Ross out of the order of a child. They're still stuck in jail, not letting him in the country.
We've got another co-host with us. I've got Andrew Smirnis from Andrew's Refrigerate Transport. He joined us at SEMA this year. G'day, Andrew.
G'day, Peter, G'day, Joe. Good to listen to this. Yeah, so today we're coming from the SEMA show. We're actually recording from the 56th floor of a hotel in Vegas.
We've been at SEMA all week. For those of you who are not sure, SEMA is a... It stands for the Specialty Equipment Market Association. So it's basically the who's who of the aftermarket parts and supplies.
But a lot of the factories are here as well. It's a large convention here in Vegas where pretty much the whole world meets up and congregates and meets their wholesalers and suppliers. Apparently it's the second largest convention in Vegas in numbers. It takes up the convention center and we've done a fair bit of walking, I think, fellas.
Yeah, we've done it. The first day is like, literally yourself, coming home after playing three games at golf. How would you feel after that? I think that's...
That pretty much sums it up. The convention center in Vegas, I would compare it if those were familiar with the Melbourne Convention Center. I would double the width, lengthen it by half and then have another story. And that's just the South Hall.
And there's another two halls after that. So this place is mega. And we're going to go through the highlights. So where are the many low lights?
But things that stood out. And if you've been following us on Instagram, I've been putting some photos up and some real crazy cars out there. Joe, any highlights? What did you see with the show?
Well, I think the Mustang with a Ferrari engine was probably one of the things I didn't expect to see, but that caught my attention for certain. Just something you don't see. Then you start it. If you can start that car.
Listen to a Mustang with a Ferrari, an Italian heart. Over the old days with a deep tomato. So they had the American engine in Italian bodies. So now they're going the other way around with a Mustang of all cars.
Well, that's the same way. Well, we're a family. I've got four boys now. So we're looking for something that's going to take 14 age boys and not be too squeezy.
And in Australia, we're looking at cars like the Pathfinder or the Nissan X-Trail. 6.5. 6.5. Things like that.
And I noticed there was a Chevrolet Blazer, which would have suited us beautifully because the middle seat is actually a full-size seat in the back seat. So it's just a shame that some of the cars that are here in America don't come to Australia because the medium-sized or small cars for American will be a larger SUV in Australia. You would think, I mean, it might be a case of wasn't designed for left or right-hand drive. There was a large Chevy stand.
There was a bigger Camarri, much more than one or two of them. There's a whole range of them that convertibles. And now that whole thing is an importer, you would think they'd have a whole catalog to pick from. You'd think.
And that blazer was a perfect car. It was massive. But it didn't look big at all. It was like a 40-inch stop.
It wasn't big at all. And it was an interesting stand, the Chevy stand. A lot of usual big trucks with Silverados. What else can we buy?
There's Alexis and a couple of other. I think it was a Kia that used this electric, a very funny-colored aqua blue that was really stand out. And I thought that's going to be an up-and-coming color. Because we saw it on a few cars there.
It was almost like an aqua blue. But I thought the color theme of the show, Andrew, as well, was not the candy red. It was like a dark crimson pearl, moron, sparkly color. And then we every stand had one of those colors on there.
It did, Peter. And I also liked the introduction of the gray, both in a matte, in a sort of a gun metal. I saw a couple of cars that looked really good with tinted windows. The Kia Stinger, for example, stood out for the rear.
That was a brilliant sort of matte gray with overly sort of tinted windows. And really good wheels on it. And it just didn't look like the normal Stinger you'd expect, which might be a bit boring or sound a bit boring. This looked really good.
And that gray sort of theme threw a lot of the mopars, some of the Camaros. Really was a color that I wasn't expecting to see a lot of at-seam of this year. But I liked the fact that it broke up the whites and the blacks. Do you think that's an American theme, though?
Like, we got a car park at Westville's Abono Junction. And every Audi, Merk, B-Muri's black, silver, grey, or white. You don't see many colors. Do you think it's an American theme?
Or, look, it might be. I think that sort of color needs touch-ups like really sort of flashing wheels to draw your right to it. Otherwise, you'd walk past the knock-thing twice about it. But when you see it done up, it does look quite attractive and it looks almost like a sleeper.
It doesn't sort of jump at you like a redwood, for example. But when you get up close to it, you think, that's not a bad combination. It fits that car. But I see what you mean, because a lot of one that they're downstairs, Southern Hall, was all tires and mag wheel manufacturers.
And you're right. They need a pallet where they could show off their wheels. But it did look good as a whole package. Right.
The colors issue for me were great. And the pinstriving. Just a bit of pinstriving on most cars and colors. Add another dimension to them.
Why don't we do enough pinstriving back home on our cars? And we've had a debate. Pinstriving does make the car go faster. It's a debate.
Ross will debate that. Joe, any other highlights that got your eye out there? I think there was the Mazda, I think Andrew's going to mention. And Mazda R100 that caught my attention.
I saw that the first day we were there outside. And I just didn't expect to see one in America. That's what really got me. There were a few seventies-type cars.
There was one car mate that was like six, seven, eight of them. There was. So Pete, I'm a big Nissan fan and have had Nissan's over the years and now have a GDR. And I was really impressed not just with the GDRs, the R35s, but the 240s and the 260s, which were done up absolutely fantastically with modern engines, some of them.
Beautiful color schemes, some with roll cages for track work, but others just done up and they looked fantastic. And it was a really good sort of flag to be flown for the Japanese brands. Mazda, Nissan, amongst all the chefs and fords and mopars. What else are you writing?
What were your highlights? Pete, as you know, we've been here a couple of years back to back. I'm always over-ordered by the passion and the love of all things automotive that all the people at GoToSima have. They can sit with you for hours and talk passionately about the cars they loved, why they love them, how many of the cars they've had in their families for generations.
There's no one here that sort of floats around to be a number. They're all here because they're passionate about SEMA like we are. And just so you know, SEMA, we said earlier after market supply, the only way you can get into SEMA is if you're in the industry. You can't buy tickets and turn up.
So you effectively have to register months in advance and you need to provide all your credentials to be here. So it is those like-minded people. It's trade-only. People are here to make money.
They're not here. It's not your motor show as such, even though some stands are. But there are people here. There's a large Asian contingent, a lot of Chinese time manufacturers.
Companies that would never have been heard of. They're here to sell truck tires and tractor tires. And it's not just all cars. There's a big truck and issue V type hall and market stand.
We'd access it to sell. There's lighting and computer equipment and video screens for reverse parking and collision prevention. There's spray painting halls with the wraps. There's three M's here.
There's any tool you can think of. There's displays. There's TV shows here. I bumped into Wayne Carini for those of you who watch Jason Classic Cars.
I'm mind-viding to come to Australia. At least maybe to make a classic. I'll tell him that would be up his alley. He said he's heard of it and he'll try and get his way down under.
So there's a lot of celebrities here. Chip Thus is a lot of drivers. Richard Rawlings, guest monkey garaj. He had his black challenger here done up on display.
He's own personal car. So they're not afraid to drive what they sort of build or promote. They drive him daily. They registered.
They registered and they look great. Just take off anything. He was wearing headphones. I wonder why we could hear we staring out.
We're older up cars. We're scattered everywhere. There were a lot of famous cars and TV personalities walking through the sea McGrounds. I would have you also Peter if I can jump in to say that Mopar this year had a really good stand.
In the past Ford and Chevrolet clearly outdid the Mopar presence. But for all you Mopar fans, they stand was fantastic. And in fact, your host Pete. Oh, drag race.
You want a drag race. They had. Just so you know you understand. I hit up beat.
Yeah. They had two full size hill cats. You get into the driver's seat. You hit the accelerator to the floor.
You hold back the upshift, the right panel shift. And when the lights go green, you have a big video screen ahead of you and you let go and you've got to change gears. And this car would literally, it would be a whole hydraulics. It would be real.
And you had the stereo pumping up the sound. And you literally felt like you're in it. Except for the G-forces. You felt like you were in a drag race.
And poor old Joe, your reaction time buddy. You might think you're the better driver. But if you drag race, it's all reaction time. Yeah.
20% of your time is no time if you get off ahead of the other driver. That's it. And Pete, that just sort of shows you how the manufacturers want to get the crowd really involved. Invited to come along.
You don't have to do anything or sign up for anything. You're not bombarded with, you know, give us your email and then you get a drive. Just rock up there, jump in, do three races on the drag strip, walk away with a smile on your face and you say, well, good luck to MoPah. You know, they've won us over.
Yeah, so the word factory stands here. We might as well run through them. So we talked about MoPah, which is FCA Chrysler Fiat. I noticed they had a Ram Vantage, or if it not, it's a Fiat van.
So there's a lot of bad engineering going on with Fiat and Chrysler and Juke. And there's a lot of Juke. But Ford's stand had a whole heap of F-150s down up. Yeah.
And then they had the Ranger, his brand new in America. And that's the Aussie design developed Ford Ranger that sold in about 150 countries in the world. And that's thumbs up to the Aussie engineering team in Ford. But make that look tiny compared to these F-150s.
I don't know how they're going to go in America because... Bigger's better. You're going to struggle. Yeah.
That front end doesn't look cute compared to the F-150, which is all business. Those truck front ends. Even the forerunner looks meaner than the front end on the Ford Ranger. Going to the Teotah stand, to finish with Ford, there was a whole heap of Mustangs all done up.
The usual suspects were there. But moving to the Teotah stand, they've got a product called the Forerunner, which is familiar to Australia in the 80s and 90s. And effectively it's a high-lux front end with the cab at the... Well, no, it was a...
We had the Forerunner back in the 80s, early 90s in Australia. But they give us the Forerunner, which is based on the high-lux. And this thing looks like the high-lux. It's like a mini-tonka truck.
It's all rectangular with scoops. And that's a high-looking car. And they've also got a vehicle called the Teotah Tundra, which is a picture of Land Cruiser to take on the F-150s. Oh, I like that.
Also, at the Super at the Teotah stand was a whole- I agree. Where Chevy has it on Ford when it comes to the Suburban and the Tahoe and Cadillac Escalade, we're forward with the Expedition. With the Expedition, it's got no traction. In the Yoot commercial market, Ford's got it all over Chevy.
So they got a couple of Silverados there. There was the smaller Ford drives that were there as well. And I wonder how it's there. Well, with the Chevy's, but I was surprised I didn't see more Stingrotter.
Corvette's there. It's just the one, I think. In the years gone past, I think they had the evolution of them. We saw the Corvette over the years, but the issue was just on Camaros.
Yeah, it was just Camaros. It was a standard... It wasn't anything...no one for bad. No, it really jumped out.
I don't know what's happening with Chevy. We can see what's happening with Holden. But with Chevy's, well, they haven't got a consistent model line up. I think they just scaled it everywhere at the moment.
Where Ford has got their global one-fold policies. Now, starting to come through and work. Oh, you're right. Honda had to stand there with Acura.
They had the NSX badges and Acura. For those of you who don't know, the NSX came to Australia as a Honda. But in the US, it's badged and Acura NSX. The new one is wholly designed, April in the US.
So that was an interesting looking car. So quick guards, heavy guards, more a hybrid. But it's a beautiful looking car. Well, with Honda about two, they're a lot of civics that have been done up behind different marketing companies with wheels and fleekets.
So, civics must have a following here. It's the fastest furious connection. We're at the shops earlier because of off-topic, we're watching the Xbox display and all driving Dario Xs and RX7. So, it's that PlayStation generation that's coming through pushing those vehicles.
We also saw the original 70s Challenger. We could see the influence of the current design. Like I said earlier, Walt wore Mustangs. That's the choice car to show you.
I'm not a fie. There's another thing that I recall that's really thought to me was the VDUT, with the V8 in the back, which had been chopped down. If you go to our Instagram, Facebook, I posted photos of that. It's a classic people's shape.
They put a Buick V8 engine in the back. Exposed. There's no back seats. It's the engine.
The exhaust comes out of the receiver. The rear quarter pillar. That might have been the car of the show. That was a beautiful car.
And it was in an area that had the only tree within the halls. They had bought a tree and put grass down. That would be car of the show, I believe. The Ferrari engine must hang.
That was very interesting. I had a low life in the show. The coups and the security. I can understand with Mandalay, everyone's a bit edgy in Vegas at the moment.
There were metal detectors and scanners. There's a bit of a queue. There's always a large number of people here. I can understand.
There was a greater police presence. And that's security fencing for the first time. I do. Which I am.
I'm not access points. I think that's just the aftermath of what happened at Mandalay Bay. I want to give everyone a taste of a grand in there. No one really sort of complained.
We all just lined up, worked our way through the queue. Once you got in, you didn't think twice about the extra 10-10 minutes. You might have spent worrying about the queue. They had live stands.
Traditionally, Ford has the front car park. He's a Ford sort of burnout racing type area. They had mentioned the upper Lara Slingshots. There was a section where they were doing dance.
You basically queue up. You sit in the passenger seat. They take you around for laps. There was the Continental Tiresstand, had two M3s and an M4 drifting through a slant-up circuit.
You can line up and sit in the passenger seat. They've also got some live events called it. It's an amazing show. There's nothing like it in the wild.
Don't forget the issue. Kia took over the general motors track. You had the general motors track. Which was a big kuva kia.
This was a point that Chevy handed in the area. But they were racing people around in the stinger. In past years, the Chevy track, you could pick which car you want to drive. A son of a key, which is a barina in Australia.
You drive around a lap and when you get out, they take you in a hot lap in the Corvette. In the current C8 Corvette, for those of you who don't know, I try to get out and call it the handle. You push a button in the door open. Even that in America, if that's a sign of laziness.
I couldn't find the door handle. You had to push a button for the door to open, which was quite funny. But the Chevy cap and the handouts. For me, Pete, that really stands seamar out above and beyond every other sort of motoring event that I've been to.
The fact that within the event, they can have three dedicated circuits where they absolutely hammer their products. You know, minute after minute, lap after lap, the general public's invited to come along. You feel not only having just walked around the place, you've seen some great things, but you've experienced them first hand as a passenger. I mean, that's unique in the world.
You do sign the way for that before you do it. Welcome to America. No, it is. It's a unique experience.
It's been going for 52 years. We were here for the 50th year of the couple years ago and we were going to a night. It's been going for a long time. They've got it down, Pat.
It's a popular four days in Vegas. The place wakes up when seamar is in town. I feel like the motor show is dying. That concept is finishing.
There's no Australian motor show. They're trying to split up between City of Melbourne. It was talked this year that the Paris show had no real glitz and glamour. And the death knell is on the motor show concept.
Where this interactive type live experience, getting into their car and hearing it and smelling it and being taken for a ride is the way to go. The numbers here show it. It's a massive show. They're trying to include the public.
They have seamar ignited. On the last day of service, a seamar traditionally is in the first week of November. It runs from Tuesday to Friday. But what they've tried to involve the public and what they do now is they set up a cruise on Friday.
On a Friday afternoon night. They open the public. They can line up and watch the vehicle go through to a designated area. They can have a sticky beak till 10 o'clock at night.
They just do lap after lap and then they can park up and then they can come back in and keep going around if they choose to. So it's just inviting everyone, not just the trade only people. They do recognise that it is a very popular and successful show and a credit to the Americans they know how to put on a show. And that's what they're renowned for.
And the other thing Peter that always surprises me is at the time of people watching the budgets, you go to seamar and every manufacturer, every accessory supplier will have there for you if you chose to take a goodies bag of sorts, pens, key rings. They're not holding back on providing a lot of those little crinkets that people like to leave with to say I've been there and I've got something to remind myself if I can't make it back next year. And the celebrities they're signing products as designated stalls and stands. I do recognise some of them.
I mean I'm to the Americans I'm sure they're either drivers or on some kind of TV show. They've got dedicated motoring channels and live streaming and the like. And Schill does really well with that. Schill's got that stand alone stand where there's nonstop people going up there being interviewed.
You can just stand around and listen to them, chat with them, laugh with them. It's just a who's who who have guessed the beerances there for the whole three days. And there was also a number of Ken Block cars, Scandal Overplace, he released an F-150 who did. A thousand horsepower.
I didn't see it. I just read about it. This place is speaking. Can't see everything guys.
But I did see the Ford stand, the RS200, that European 80s rally, that was a that was hernigan eyes or hernigan. The old Mustang was at the front, the shell stand was the original Mustang. The bike's peak Mustang. But you have all five, you have five or six cars here.
I didn't see all of them though. It was a legend. And they had a large screen. I think it was a tyre.
Toyo has Ken Block. The speakers are blaring. And the outside area is interesting too. You've got these trucks that are lifted.
My head doesn't reach the top of the bottom, a little low. And I laughed at Andrew and said, the reason why they're these highs to keep away, the guys at the red lights are trying to clean your window. He's got a reach. No.
That's the reason why they're so high. But it's just under those wheels, those chariot style spikes on the other wheel. They keep you away from the wheel itself. And we saw the Lamborghini Urus before drive.
I saw that line for the first time at the Formula One, where I'm being Melbourne. This year, I could go up to it closer to the flesh. It's an interesting looking car. The photos on some angles make it look like a Lambo.
But when you come from it at normal height, this is another SUV. And then I saw it's Grandad outside. The LM002. The square thing, there was one of those outside.
So it's Grandad was outside. The Lamborghini four drive, where they made, it was the Kuntar's V12 engine. And apparently viewers, at least as you may have to correct this, because you think it was for the American Army. And I'll convince this for the Italian Army.
I think it was for the American Army. Oh, Leo said it was a friend of ours. A design for a military contract. And Lamborghini went so far with it.
I thought, we've got all these shells. I didn't get the contract. So we'll build this issue. You've got the Schwarzenegger famously born in the 80s.
No rough lot. They didn't work. There was so few released now that were collectors. The Rekalek designed it with the Kuntar's V12 engine in a square SUV body.
So there's a lot of weird and wonderful cars and things that you'll never see getting in your life. And things that you'll never remember from past shows and an amazing experience. For me, I'll just say one more thing. I'm restoring an old 67 V.
And one thing I didn't expect to find there was a supplier of parts. And I came across one. And that was probably the best thing that came out of this show for me. Because they've got a contract in Sydney that I can now get in touch with and hopefully get parts from here.
Because I had a look at the chassis they had here. And it's pretty good quality. And in Australia, a lot of the metals are very thin. And you're paying ridiculous money for small parts.
And freight's a nightmare. They actually cuddle that out. But there's an opportunity for business here as well. A lot of the times I've come here on behalf of a panel building business collision central regards to Tom.
And I came here on the purpose to look for a spray booth. And there's a number of companies. And they're half the price of the ones in Australia. And a number of these companies were looking for suppliers in Australia.
And they're looking for a business opportunity in the motoring game. Semira is a great meet and greet point. They have all the halls scattered. And each one's a designated area.
So the double story hall that I mentioned at the beginning, the top hall was dedicated to issue the off road. Recry ocean equipment, light bars, foot bars, suspension that works. The downstairs wheels and tires. The central hall was more the racing factory turbos.
The factory stands were there. And the northern hall is all dedicated to repairs, wraps, three M's. I understand there. Spray booths, equipment used for the repair of vehicles.
So they're all clustered together. And if you are looking for a business opportunity, you can see everybody together, introduce yourself, tell them you're from Australia. Like Andrew said earlier, they will talk to you till the cows come home. They really, very friendly, like minded.
And there's also, you've done it in previous years, there's also you can enroll in talks and classes. Absolutely. There's plenty of conferences taking place seminars. On every subject you can imagine, all three of charge, all the attendees.
And you go along to these sessions that take between maybe 45 minutes to an hour. And you leave with so much knowledge and context that you really sort of think it's great to have come here and been part of it. And so everyone who comes over to CIMA should have a look at what's on offer in terms of seminars and try to get to a few of them. The place is quite large.
We found a way around it. We found a trick. You can give a secret away. No, no, no, stay tuned.
We get around on those electric carts designed for... No, just scooters. It was the common colour. It was the candy marode colour.
Yeah, it was. And we had two of them this year. We rotated them. It is the best way to get around.
And people opened doors for you. I feel I apologize. You job cues with them. It's a great little device to get around quickly if you're here on a limited time or you don't want to get too tired.
So that was an interesting way to our CIMA. And then we had to do one right back. We did. And fire around out of battery.
And I was getting pushed by. It's going to be fine. Interesting. We're getting honked at.
It was laughing. Watch two motors good as pushing one another up hills into casinos. People thought they were canned and scooters. I was saying, we're going to get one of those.
I don't know. But we'll call that a wrap. So that was our CIMA podcast. We'll resume normal podcasting next week.
We're going to be recording. Those who are listening to this podcast, it's when it's released. The Sunday coming up, we're going to be at Leading Edge, a cleaning company at Silverwater. We'll be talking about how to clean your car, how to look after it, products you can use, what not to use.
So if you've got any cleaning questions, send it through on Instagram at alltorquarkpodcast or on the Facebook, send us an email at alltorquark.com.au and we'll raise those questions and mention you on air. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me on the podcast. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The lawyers ready for a little rust? Will they be available for next week? I think we've got that sorted, mate.
I'm hoping they'll be out. We'll go to LAX in two days time and see if they're out of the cells and bring it back on the plane with us. So I think they'll be back for next week. So thank you again and until the next podcast.
Thank you for listening.