SEMA 2025 Wrap-Up, SEMA Fails, Party At SEMA - Shift & Steer EP544

of the

and

Did you get sick?

Oh, man.

I took my airborne to drink lots of water.

Matt's sick.

I'm sick.

I got him too.

I got both those things.

Really?

I'll handle the cold if you guys can handle the bill.

Man, knock on foot.

I gave someone a hug that said they were sick too

and I still didn't get sick.

It was weird, Aaron.

I was telling Matt.

I came home Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning.

I woke up and I felt like,

well, maybe I didn't get a good night's sleep last night.

And then by about the middle of the day, man,

I was like, oh, man, you know.

And you know what?

Could just be the storm moving in too.

You know, we got a big storm moving in here.

But man, my sinuses and coffin and, you know, it's...

I get the runny nose and stuff.

Like, honestly, I was like, I was day two in the SEMA

and I felt the scratchy throat.

I was just like, it's the dry air.

It's the dry air.

Yeah, it's the AC.

Yeah, and I was like, I told this cigarette smell.

So, you know, from the casinos and then I, but I knew it.

Now, for me, it's just kind of like the runny nose.

I just take like the allergy.

Well, like a clutter tend to try to drive me up

and that's about it.

Well, thanks for driving in my little car with me

for two days and...

We all fit.

And thanks for sharing the milkshake

and all the other stuff while you were sick.

Thanks, Matt.

Listen, I, you know, I didn't know it like bread.

I didn't know it till I got home.

But honestly, it's not bad.

I got kind of like a runny nose and then that's it.

But I don't really have like the call

for the sinuses of all the cook.

Well, honestly, it probably is just

just a very active SEMA.

There were some late nights.

Yes, there was.

You know, I was always worried about it before SEMA.

It's like, oh man, am I gonna get sick this time?

I got so much to do after and knock on wood.

The SEMA doesn't do it.

Dad's birthday bash does it, like the Cabo Crud.

When there's a rainstorm, you know, in the water,

the place floods and then it's like,

everybody gets sick for months.

But you guys listening, we have some friends out there

that play music.

They're an amazing band and Tammy always loves to see them.

But because she had to stay and work,

she didn't drive out until like Thursday.

So we went to Roadster Shop Party,

which I'll tell you guys about.

But then we stayed until Sunday morning

because the guys were playing Saturday night.

Radio X, X maybe?

Yeah, but it wasn't Radio X, it was regulator.

So the signal regulators.

Yes, they changed it up.

Yeah, Toby wasn't there

and they did kind of like the Ebo Knight

and Ziggy would jump in.

He's one of the guys there as well.

And of course it was just like,

they went on at 10.45, almost 11,

played until 1.30.

Right?

Me just like, you go to Seema and you party

and you go out all night.

And I'm like, honey, the band doesn't even start till 11

and we love the band.

Two nights in a row, we saw the band,

we were out till three.

And those are early shows.

And afterwards Ben wants to eat

so then we go upstairs and have some French fries.

And Ben, who's a friend of ours,

he's the guitarist of the band and manager.

So he's just like, he plays, he doesn't drink,

he doesn't do anything.

So he plays, he wants to eat like an egg sandwich

and then he wants to leave.

The rest of the band does not want to leave.

So Saturday, they played, it was awesome,

it was fun, it was like Emo night,

it was almost like 90s, 2000s, it was good.

And they play their set for hours like a DJ set.

Like they just go from song to song to song.

And when they play at the barbershop,

they're walking over the couches and ACDC

and Guns N' Roses and it was so much fun.

And we were in the, if you guys are familiar with barbershop,

there's usually a couple of like people get tables

and bottle service.

And we were at the very front table

with some friends that had bottle service.

And I was just drinking water the whole time.

By the time Saturday came around,

I had like a scratchy throat.

It was like, ah, I'm just gonna do the smart thing here.

I don't want to hear excuses when you're at a club.

And then they played and then afterward,

Bryce was like, let's go chandelier bar.

And then that turned into, I must,

and we stayed at the Cosmo, which is great

because you could just walk back to the room

at the end of the night,

but it must have been 4 a.m.

Oh wow.

Saturday, like, you know,

and Sunday, it's like, you gotta check out.

You know, you gotta check out at 11.

So I'm just like, I'm just gonna, it's 4 a.m.

You don't have to.

I'm gonna send an alarm for trying to get up 10

and then just pack up my sheet and leave.

And yeah, it was good.

We did, but that was a long, that was a long one.

I'll tell you, the worst one I ever had

was the year I built my GMC Sierra truck

for General Motors.

And I went out and had parties to go to,

was with friends.

And I walked into my hotel as the sun was coming up.

Yeah.

And as I'm sitting down on the edge of my bed going,

okay, do I just take a shower and go to the show

or do I sleep for a couple hours?

My phone rings.

And it's like, congratulations,

we just wanted to let you know

that you won the GM Design Award.

We need you here at the breakfast at 7 a.m.

And I'm like, oh crap, I guess I'm not sleeping.

You know, it's like, and you go in there

and you feel like your eyelids are like 20 pounds.

You know.

But the difference for me though is

I wasn't drinking the whole time.

I was just drinking water

because I didn't want to be tired

and feel like shit with everything else on top of it.

I just had a bloody Mary and went for it, man.

Just do it, just power through.

But listen, if you guys go out to Vegas,

there's a place called the Barbershop at the Cosmo.

And there's a Speak Easy back there.

You can go to the, it's like Barbershop, Las Vegas.

If you look it up, there's like a calendar of events.

Any one of the shows, if you see a band called Radio XX,

they are awesome, you should see them.

Those are the guys.

Regulators is almost the same group,

just a little bit different singer.

The emo night, they play that, karaoke night.

So if you can get to any show at the Barbershop, it's awesome.

It's a small venue at the Cosmo.

It only holds like 140 people,

although it feels like they're jam-packed.

It feels like more, yeah.

And, you know, the sounds good, the band's good.

Like the super talented guys, right?

They play with you, they play with your guys.

If you ever wanted to be a rock star

and say that you played a stage in Vegas,

you go to one of their karaoke nights

and you have them as the backup band.

Yeah, I'll tell you, you know, I can't,

I can't say enough about this band.

I mean, obviously, all three of us have been around music,

especially Brad and I, to the extent.

And it's, these guys are one of the best live bands I've ever seen.

You know, I've just become a huge fan of theirs.

They're just so good.

And I could go down the deep dive, I won't,

but their showmanship, their stage presence,

that they're fully into the audience.

I mean, they just play to the audience.

And that place is so intimate.

And the way it's designed, it's very fluid, right?

Like, like the whole place feels like, like one entity.

And, and it really is cool.

It's, and you feel safe there.

Like, I've never been, I mean, I've probably been in there

what five or six times now.

And, and it's like, I never feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

You know, especially if you're in the little VIP area,

like we've been, every 30 seconds,

it seems a security walks across or, or, or, yeah,

or the bar person or, or your cocktail or whoever.

They're professional.

It doesn't feel sleazy.

It feels like classy and just a cool experience.

So, you know, because Vegas can be pretty seedy

and most of those clubs I would never go to.

But I got to say, Prime, absolutely.

It's, it's done right.

Yeah, it really is.

And the boys do it right.

Hey, I want to bring something up from the last show

before I forget.

On the last show, I had a couple of people message me

and say, hey, you got a problem in the middle of your show

where the mics got weird or something like that.

No, that wasn't, that was intentional.

We had a funny story about a friend of ours,

but, excuse me, but it wasn't verified.

And I thought about it afterwards.

I came from a third party.

So when we said what he did, there's a crinkling.

It's like, it's instead of a beep, it's a crinkling.

It's to, to mark that out.

Then you hear us laugh.

And then we hear what he did.

He's, oh, I sat in some gum.

So, so I was going to say, was that that that thing?

Yeah. So, so that was not verified.

So I thought about it.

I thought, you know, we didn't verify that.

That came from another person who I'm sure

it's true, but it just, it's one of those things.

So if you hear that show, that's not a mistake.

It's not a error in the mics or anything like that.

It was intentional instead of a beep.

It's a good story.

And unfortunately, some things you can't unsee or unhear.

And I, I, I, I, right, right.

Like you, you're about to tell us about the party you went to.

And I guess he hosted it or roasted it.

And all I could think of is, did he do it again?

No, everything was smooth.

You're talking about the Roadster Shop party, right?

So the Roadster Shop, I did an interview on CarCast

with the Roadster Shop a few weeks ago.

So if you guys want to go back and listen to that,

it's really good.

The Roadster Shop, they are chassis builders.

And we've spoken about chassis builders for a long time

on the show, Art Morrison, some of the, the brands

that are brown for a long time.

But Roadster Shop managed to do a phenomenal job

building a both a good product and an amazing company, right?

And just how they've grown and the branding

and how so many hot rod builders are,

are leaning toward them to, to build stuff.

And that, that speaks highly for, for them as guys and,

and one of the things Matt just interjected

that makes their products so much different

when I've really studied it and looked at it,

is they offer not necessarily the builders,

but the average guy building a car at his house

or something like that, a full chassis that is bolt on.

Yeah.

There's a lot of chassis, you gotta start cutting metal

and, and modifying and channeling

and doing all kinds of stuff

that the average guy just doesn't feel comfortable

or not even capable of doing.

And that's what really set him apart

in the beginning there.

And, and you can get it from different levels.

Like you can get just the bare chassis

probably starts at around nine grand or so

up to a full rolling suspension,

you know, chassis, suspension, brakes, rear end, diff,

like everything for, you know,

probably upwards in the $30,000 range.

But when you start to think about it,

I was doing the math with a buddy of mine.

He's like, oh, I'm going to do this Mustang

and I'm going to do the front suspension

and do the rear suspension.

And I need to get all the brakes

and all that was just like bolt onto the unibody.

And he's like, and I did all the math on this

and he goes, and I'm at, you know,

he's like, I'm at $20 something thousand dollars,

$25,000.

And he's like, but for 30 grand,

I can just get like the chassis for, you know,

that's it's all done and assembled.

You can even have it powder coated, delivered

and the body goes on.

I mean, obviously there's a lot more work after that,

but they do such a good job in making it.

So like, especially like the unibody cars,

it's not like you're cutting them all apart

and everything like you can, you can put it on there.

But anyway, so many builders are doing it

that they go around the show

and you're up for the award called Best on RS.

So it's the best build on a Roadster Shop chassis.

So, and then every year now they've been doing

on Thursday night, they've been doing

the Roadster Shop party and it's an awards thing.

So yes, there's DJ playing, it's a great environment.

They used to do it at the ARIA,

but this one was at the Dreia?

Is it Dreia at Dreia?

It's at the Cromwell at the top of the Cromwell,

like the rooftop place.

Yeah, you know, I know Brad, you've been there.

You were there a little while ago or a couple of years,

within the last couple of years, you went to an event there.

Well, I got that expensive cocktail.

Yeah.

Oh, yes.

And what's cool about the Roadster Shop party,

just so you guys know, is they do sell some tickets

for that to the public.

So fans of that can get it now.

It sold out in one day this year,

but you could buy a ticket to that event

and hang out with everybody.

And it's a who's who.

Every builder is there.

Bobby Allaway was there.

Friends of ours, I saw Chris Jacobs,

Courtney Hanson, of course, Ring Brothers were there.

All the other builders can dig.

Like everybody was there at this event.

So different builders can get awards,

depending on, I don't know what the categories are,

maybe certain generation of cars or, you know,

import car or some truck or whatever.

And then one group takes the overall award

and they do such a great job.

It's like a giant championship belt,

like a WWE belt or like a boxing belt.

It's all crusted in jewels and all this stuff.

And years ago when I was at Goldberg's house,

I put on, they gave him a WWE championship belt.

Like he won like a WrestleMania thing

and they, at the time, they're like,

we don't know if you're gonna be retiring or not.

So you actually take the belt, take it home with you

and keep it.

We'll just make another one for the next generation.

Oh, that's cool.

And so I went to his house and I put that thing on.

So they do this really good job at the belt.

It's gotta be expensive.

Like obviously it's not all real jewels and stuff,

but you're like, you know.

What, wait a minute, this is news.

They're not real diamonds.

A funny story is, and I'll just,

this is Bill's story to tell,

but because he said it before is

he won the belt at the WWE event like seven or eight years ago.

And his son, Gage was there and he was a kid at the time.

And so they gave him the belt

and you don't normally like keep the belt forever, right?

So he, Bill grabbed the knife, Goldberg grabbed the knife

and he popped one of the jewels out of the belt

and he told Gage, he's like, you put this in your pocket.

This is gonna, this is our event.

You and I were here.

You remember this.

And then later, Vince McMahon is like a Brock Leicester come in

and they're like, we want to give you the belt.

And he goes, wow, that's amazing.

Thank you.

And he goes, well, I already popped one of the jewels out of it

because we didn't think we were gonna get to keep it.

And we're like, oh, we were wondering where that went.

Here you go.

So funny.

It was great.

So that's awesome.

Happy to say that our friends, the Ring Brothers,

they won the overall award on the belt.

They won it for Octavia, the Aston Martin that they built.

And then I did an interview with them

that you can listen to car cast this week about it.

When you really kind of hear about that car,

the amount of work that was done to it,

just it's all carbon fiber.

And they make these like bucks, you know,

like a tulle fuel, but not out of metal.

It's done out of like a really, Brad,

you're probably more familiar with this.

It's a very, very high density foam.

They said that almost looks and feels like a Bondo.

Yeah.

But it's foam.

They could like plaster almost, you know, it's yeah.

And they make the pieces and I go,

I know, but you guys only get like one shot at it.

If you're doing a car in metal

and the gaps aren't right, you can shave it down

or add some weld, you know, they're like,

you don't get to do that with carbon fiber, right?

So everything has to be perfect.

So the reliance now on scanning accurate data files

with CAD software and just mocking it up again

and again and again and just nailing the program,

the data before you start making pieces out of it.

Incredible, but that car has a transaxle.

So Tremac announced a transaxle manual transmission

as a new product.

They're working on the DCT version,

but they're working on the programming.

So if you want to like the paddle shift,

it's basically the transmission in the Corvette C8

and the Mustang GTD, right?

But both of those are paddle shift cars.

And the programming, the TCU,

which is the transmission controller,

has to talk to the ECU, which is the engine controller.

And if you're doing like a Ford Coyote engine,

they can get them to talk,

but on most other platforms, they haven't developed it yet.

So it doesn't talk to them.

Are they gonna have it PDQ?

I don't know yet, but.

What about RSP?

They haven't gotten it to talk to fast EFI or Holley EFI yet.

So they're gonna work on that.

But they do have a manual transmission version.

And if they get the software done on the dual clutch

transmitter, you can paddle shift,

put it in sort of an automatic mode if you want.

But I didn't know this at the time

until I was talking with them.

That Aston Martin has a Roadster shop chassis

that they customized for the Transaxle.

And it's a manual transmission Transaxle from Tremac

put behind the Coyote engine

with a custom hair up super car.

That's probably RET, I would think.

Yeah.

Really expensive transmission.

Really expensive, everything.

That car is, there's not a lot left of that car.

No, the vin plate.

The vin plate and a window regulator.

Yeah.

That's it.

That's what happened.

That's about it.

The car was more expensive than I even thought it was.

That's all I can say.

They should have named it Robocop.

Was it one of these, Matt?

There was definitely a number involved.

Yeah, I bet.

It's one of those followed by an M, I think.

Yeah, it's an expensive car.

There's a Ford.

It is an expensive car.

Yeah, but by the way, for those of you that can't see,

Brad held up a lot of fingers,

plus a couple of Charlotte's fingers and two dog paws.

Speaking of which, how is Charlotte,

is she feeling better after seeing him?

Yeah, she is, thanks for asking.

She's feeling a lot better.

She got better, I got sick.

Well, that's why you got sick.

Why? Because I came home?

Is that what you're insinuating?

Well, maybe, and I think Matt got sick

because both of you two were crammed

in the back of the Porsche together.

That's right.

I got sick from him from being in the Porsche.

We, Aaron drove out the 911,

which by the way, seeing it, I love it.

That color is amazing.

That's such a fun car.

Thank you.

And decided to squeeze four of us in that car,

you and your friend, and then Brad and I were in the back.

It feels like this since.

There was, guys, no joke.

Now those new 992s are pretty, like they're known,

like they're so much bigger than the older models

in the 997, like they're big, right?

Man, four of us in there, packed in there,

there was less room than the Mini Cooper.

My old vintage Mini Cooper had more room inside for four people.

I had three people, like three passengers

in the Mini Cooper two years ago,

and all of them were over six foot.

One was like six foot three,

and everybody fit in there reasonably.

The Porsche, Matt and Brad are under five, nine,

let's say, five, 10, and myself included.

And I think Adrian just almost six feet,

but it's like all of us were,

I was literally four inches from the steering wheel.

I had my seat all the way forward.

I was driving where my head was almost touching the headliner

just to give those guys that much more room,

which wasn't that much more room.

Your dog would have troubles with the leg room.

Now, you would think with a car that small,

engine in the rear and 600 pounds of dude in the car,

that it wouldn't get loose, let yet Aaron managed to get it.

Oh yeah, he managed to get it.

I'm like, hey, we're in a tunnel.

Let me just stab it real quick, totally get sideways.

I'm like, okay, let's not do that.

Brad, are you okay?

No word.

Brad, are you okay?

No word.

Matt?

Yeah, yeah, kind of, because your seat may not be though,

I think I said that.

I was like, I was like, come on,

I don't want to be in the paper tomorrow.

You know?

That's it.

I felt so bad.

Might have left a little bit of pee in your car.

I felt so, honestly, I felt so bad.

I had no intention, no intention.

It was fine.

It was fun.

I just, I wasn't expecting the car for the tail

to like really pop out that far.

No, I know.

But it was in a very controlled fashion.

You handled it well, it was fine.

Oh, thank you.

None of us expected it.

Yeah, all three times, none of us expected it.

Yes.

Hey, have you guys run across on,

I can't remember if it's Facebook or Instagram,

but it's just called SEMA fails.

No.

Have you seen this?

I ran across this and I was like, oh my God,

it got my interest.

It's some dude who all he posts are like things

that are just like, you know, really bad things.

Like he showed one of those big raised up trucks outside.

And I mean, this guy either he's got an eye

or he's got lots of people sending him stuff

because some of the stuff was like, wow, how'd you find that?

But one of the big raised up trucks.

Yeah.

I noticed there wasn't a drive shaft under it.

So I looked underneath, takes a picture.

Not only is there not a drive shaft,

there was no transmission.

Oh my gosh.

This truck's all chromed and plated and painted

and you look underneath and it's just the flywheel.

You know, it's, and then there was another one

of the big raised up trucks.

And he goes, this one scared me.

And it was, none of the body mounts had bolts on it.

There's just,

Every body mount was the, was the threaded stud

coming through and no bolts.

Oh my gosh.

Well, you know, I guess another car caught on fire,

which was really unfortunate.

A bunch of people blowing it out.

And then I kept seeing another car fell off the back

of a transport up high or was that,

I never saw that from another year.

I don't know if it was a repeat from a past year

cause I know that happened,

but, but it showed, what was it,

a Corvette or something that had fallen off the top

of the transport onto the ground.

I thought, oh man, what a bummer.

It's time.

But if you, if you get a chance, it's,

it's kind of like, you know, but having been

on the other end of building a SEMA car.

If a car gets destroyed, I don't,

obviously I don't like that, but you're right.

If something shows up at SEMA and there's no engine in it,

that's a funny SEMA fail.

I know what it was stressing about

and you had to get your car out there.

I mean, I brought cars out there that weren't running,

you know, but yeah, that's kind of the nature.

But some of them are like, you, you see the car

and you think, wow, that's a nice car.

And then he shows, you know, like that,

I'm trying to think of some of the other ones.

Those were the big ones that I really remembered

that were just like, oh my God, no body mount bolts.

And then, but there were somewhere

he was showing paint failures, you know, like one of them,

like from one side, the car looked really nice,

but it was up against a wall and you come around

the other side and it was just all like,

where the paint had bubbled and they tried to fix it.

And, you know, you get all the kind of things that happen

when you're, you know, balls to the wall, trying to get done.

And, you know, but that's social media.

There's some guy out there

who that's all he's looking for, it seems.

That's funny.

But, you know, to be fair, Friday at the end of the show,

everybody fires up their cars, the ones that work and...

Ones that have transmissions.

I hung around again and watched some of those cars

leave the convention center and some of those things,

like you see how amazing they are, but then you hear it and...

Like, listen, some are meant to be just smooth and nice

and some are just a rump with a big cam and yeah,

just getting that whole mix of stuff.

And the Ring Brothers came out and that Aston Martin

that they built, that thing sounds tough, by the way,

with the Coyote engine and then some of those big blower cars,

like it's, you can see when they're leaving,

like that's a fun part of the event for them going,

I'm taking it out to the parade.

I want to show a few people you should hear this thing.

So it's cool.

That's awesome.

You know, we...

I missed the parade this year.

I had to leave on Friday.

I did too.

I mean, I didn't see the parade out front.

I was still in the convention center after watching some

of the cars go.

Yeah, watching some of the cars go.

You know, we went to a lot of parties.

We did not go to the Hemings party

and that one was over at Sosa Metalworks

and you talk about firing up and stuff like that.

And it was pretty crazy.

Finnegan had his new flat bottom drag boat there

and they put it in a huge inflatable kiddie pool

and it was floating in the middle of the party

and at one point crawled in and fired it up during the morning.

And it was pretty cool.

That's the kind of stuff I like to have happen.

That's cool.

That's fun.

Hey, let's have another beer.

Well, let's start up the boat first, man.

You know?

Sosa is cool.

And another shop, you know, I don't know if it's open

to the public for viewing outside of that event,

but man, they or he does some really incredible work.

I think I mentioned it before that, you know,

there's a lot of custom motorcycles, I think primarily,

but I think there were some hot rods there too

when I went there last.

But man, his they work, their work is just stunning.

I mean, every motorcycle in there that I saw,

the attention to detail, the framework

and all the little details, almost like they're doing

some beautiful metal etching these days.

And it's like he had these little transitions

like where the pipes come together, you know,

the tubes come together and they're welded to perfection

and then they're ground down.

And then there's all this little detail

on those little transitional pieces.

And I mean, just gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.

Not like big show bike kind of stuff,

but like this stuff is like the queen or the king's armor.

It's how I like to describe it.

Really nice.

His stuff looks like the king's armor.

Just detail and beauty and gorgeous.

So since the last show, was there anything

that really stood out that you didn't mention

on the last show that maybe you ran across

and went, whoa, wait a minute, that was pretty cool.

Well, I have some thoughts on that,

but before we forget, let's take a quick break

and then we'll-

Well, it's a little late, why even do it now?

Okay, okay, we'll do it now.

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You know, it's gonna be a problem for me

because I forgot to put down what time

we started on the time code.

Uh-oh.

It's a crap shoot.

You're gonna have to find the pause.

Just find the pause.

You know, that's such a hard question to answer.

What was your favorite or notable?

Cause it's like there's so many cars

that are just stunning that, you know,

there was that cool weird pancake Porsche

in the back in that tech area, you know?

Oh, those are two brothers,

two Russian brothers that built that.

And I know those guys.

And that car, they've got the running.

Did you see them both?

And the one actually is a mock-up,

but the other one actually running.

It's more finished than that.

So cool.

It is so cool.

Yeah.

And they all handcrafted metal.

And it's very, it's very like we use some Porsche parts

and then just got lost.

But like, like TJ's, you know, was it a 488?

I think a 458 or 488?

You know, he did the, you know,

let's get a cup car and put it on a street car.

But you know what?

I liked that he left the little lights,

the little FOD lights on there.

And he did some cool stuff.

The car is just immaculate.

There's, you know, and throttle's new 4GT.

It's like, I'm going,

I wonder if dad will let me fuck with the 4GT.

Like they've done some good.

Well, the Bear brakes, you know,

or the Willwood brakes,

they have a whole new brake kit for it that works.

You know, they've upgraded some stuff on that car

that's a little questionable after what,

a 05 or 04?

I forget how.

Yeah.

You know, it could use some updating.

I love that car.

I meant to ask you, Aaron, did you see,

I didn't get a chance to see it, but I thought you did.

The, it was like the Ferrari, the GT4 Luso lifted.

Yes.

I was just going to ask about that.

Yes, it was like a safari.

I just told my wife this morning.

I said, man, I would love to take that.

That was the Luso.

Cause it had the, it had the, the single tail lights,

single tail lights in the back or do,

I forget which is which, but that was the Luso.

Yeah.

But where did you see it?

Cause I never saw that.

It was at, it was at the South Hall,

but with the four by four stuff, it was over there.

Yeah, it was over there.

I would do that build any day of the week,

maybe different wheels, love the color, you know,

but I would go far more than they did.

I wish I would have seen that one.

Yeah. Incredible, like tasteful, tasteful.

Yeah.

I just throw that to dad.

He went, wow, that's really cool.

I said, right.

He goes, he goes, yeah, I really like those FF Lusos.

I said, well, you had one and you didn't take delivery.

I mean, he had to buy one when he bought his Ferrari.

I'm like, you should have taken delivery of it.

You'd be surprised.

You might have liked that car.

They're weird.

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah.

Anyway, that was cool, but I didn't get a chance to see it.

I saw it online.

I was like, God, I hope you got to go over there

and see this thing.

Yeah, well, I did.

Listen, I'm glad that that car got attention

because there's so many things out there.

And sometimes some of the off-road vehicles,

that looks like more of a high-speed off-roader,

like a Ranger Raptor than it is a Rockcrawler or an Overlander.

But yeah, that thing was kind of cool.

It's just like the Porsche keep calling it a Safari.

What is it?

Dakar.

It's basically a Lusso Dakar.

I mean, that's basically what it was.

It's that kind of build.

I did go over, before I forget, I went over to the new parts

showcase and shot a bunch of photos and stuff there.

There's a handful of really cool new products over there.

So I'm going to put up a whole photo gallery

and I'll share it on social media.

The gallery will be on the moderator of Facebook page.

But yeah, listen, what I'm finding the theme of parts

is more and more DIY solutions.

Like, first of all, like you've seen this,

like audio solutions that are vehicle specific.

Here's a turnkey solution for whatever, a couple of thousand

bucks.

You get subwoofers and wiring and it's all plug and play,

something like that.

Obviously, supercharger kits, getting more inclusive,

easier to install, emissions, legal, cool pieces like that,

just easier solutions, more and more advances in bolt-on fuel

injection systems from full custom systems

to swap out the carburetor and a fuel pump,

put power and ground to it and like you're good to go.

Like you get it fired up, there's a little touchscreen,

it's all self-learning and within a few miles,

it's figuring out how to run that thing.

Like when I put the first fuel injection,

like a TBI fuel injection on a 65 Mustang,

took the carb off, put that thing on, it was a nightmare.

Trying to get it tuned was crazy and then going to a dyno shop

and having them tune it and those guys going,

like the software is really confusing and we're trying to

figure it out and it was, from that kind of debacle 20 years

ago to now, it's so much better.

There's so many good turnkey solutions.

There was a Camaro in the, it's like a 99 Camaro or something

in the Holley booth and I talked to Mark Gerhardt about it.

I did an interview with Holley, which we'll have on CarCast,

but I think he said that whole build was 37 days.

Let's figure it out, let's put something together in about a month

and they did and it was cool.

How much did they do to it?

I mean, how modified were they?

They put like an LT4 engine in it, suspensions on it,

they did some interior stuff to it, not a lot of like body work,

but they did do like a front splitter kind of air dam thing

and a wing and that was the only thing that they looked online

to see if anybody had the parts.

Now, everything else they threw on it was something out of the Holley catalog

and again, it's about making it DIY accessible and easy to bolt on

and easy to self-tune and all of that stuff.

So all of that stuff went on, but Car was it again?

It was like a Camaro, it's like a 99.

So it wasn't carbon fiber with a transaxle?

No, it wasn't, but the big splitter in the front

and like a big ducktail wing in the back was they 3D printed it in-house,

they 3D printed it because they're wide, it was wide as the car,

they did it in three sections, they bonded them together,

smooth them out, shot them in like a satin black

to make it look like it's like a black plastic basically and put those on.

Those are the other things they kind of did at the last minute

were like, I can't find anything to buy.

I remember you mentioning that, Brad,

should we compliment Matt on his tastes of cars and say that that Foxbody Mustang

and what was it, the mother's-

The Roaster Shop, the Velocity restoration.

Well, Brad, you asked a while ago, what was the favorite car?

I would say yes to that car, that was gorgeous.

That thing was really nice.

But they just did a great job of like elevating that Mustang, right?

They were like, oh, they came with the Tweet interior,

but then what they did with recovering the really nice Recaro's with a similar interior

and then just everything just like printing the speaker grills and the center console,

just like it was so nice, so nice.

The paint was perfect.

Yeah, and again, a black car, so tough to do.

Wedging that motor in there and it looked like it belonged.

Yeah, it really did.

Well, it did, but you're like, does it fit in the hood?

And then he realized there's a very tasteful bulge in the hood.

Yeah, so I've said this before, I don't like cowl induction hoods on most cars.

You know, sometimes you can see a 69 Camaro and go, yeah, that's good.

I like that, that looks good.

But I never liked them on the Mustangs.

And you can see these guys didn't buy a cowl induction hood in the hood.

No.

The engine was a Whipple Supercharged Coyote engine.

Yeah.

And it sits high.

Yeah, very proud.

They needed a little bit of room, so they made a really nice cowl induction hood, but

it wasn't one of the ones that just kind of like went up and higher and higher and higher,

like a ramp.

It kind of came up and then just went smooth across.

Yeah, very tasteful.

Very tastefully done.

And I've always been partial to the notch backs.

That's what, you know, then the fastback, they just look a little sportier to me.

But do you see, they didn't put wings on it.

They didn't put like crazy canards and air dams.

Like the back, like you said, the notch back, the trunk real smooth,

had an automatic transmission in it.

It looked like it had like a period correct shifter from back in the day.

But chances are it's a more modern, I don't know, probably six feet.

Well, that was the beauty of that build is, you know, I only remember those from high school

because I really haven't paid attention to them.

And I always liked them.

I liked the LX with the GT, you know, without the badging.

It was just an LX with all the GT options.

So it was a sleeper.

That's what my friend had.

But so I couldn't remember all the details of the interior,

but you're looking at this thing going, were they really that nice?

I mean, like because like you said, they just elevated the materials and the surfaces

and 3D printed little details so that everything was really,

really a better version of what it originally was.

So I guarantee you, like everybody that saw that, that wasn't quite familiar with,

I'm going to try to find one of those and look at one.

Boy, they just aren't as nice inside as that one.

No. So the shape of the dash and the gauge cluster, they could have started over completely,

but they kept it all.

I don't want to say they kept the original because obviously they redid everything,

but like, you know, the top of the dash and off to the side, all done in an Alcantara.

Yeah.

Which is really nice.

The big steering wheel with the airbag in the middle,

they ended up doing like a smaller version.

Like the whole thing is just like, like this,

the airbag is all proportionately better.

It's smaller and they, and like the porn buttons are there,

but kind of like outside of the steering wheel, everything kind of scaled down.

You would notice, but I would, I would just think it looks amazing.

Yeah. Well, Charlotte had a Fox body instead.

Yeah. She had a, she had a black, a black LX five liter convertible.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, they're fun cars.

I can literally remember the smell of the interior and the way it drives.

Like, like I remember that for some reason, I just, I, and I drove a convertible because my

friend had a, had a white LX. I think it had blue interior and, and it had all the GT stuff,

but it was an LX. And, and I remember how that thing used to, like, like when you'd corner,

or when you hit bumps in the road, like it, it just felt like it just, it would shift.

It was shifty, you know, like from the weight, but it, it, it was, it was cool.

If you guys want to see that car, the company is velocity restorations.

Velocityrestaurations.com. They are one of those companies that do turnkey cars, like,

you know, like a singer or an icon or whatever, right? Yeah.

And they do some mustangs and they do some off-road trucks and stuff. And this was the first Fox

body, but it, it sort of implied that they might do some like, I have no idea what that thing's

going to cost, $200,000 or something like that. But, but velocityrestaurations.com,

they have some photos and stuff up over the car if you guys want to see.

Well done. I mean, if I, if I had cash to throw around, I would consider it because that thing

was court. Yeah, things cool. I mean, everything Roadster Shop had in their booth was just top

line, really tasteful, really nice, not overdone. And it was a good variety.

It was Roadster Shop. I think I was relating to, to mothers because it was so clean and so shiny.

I was like, oh, shiny. Yeah. And it was next to, was it next to mothers? Next to Maguire.

Yes. Or yeah, maybe it was next to Maguire. Sorry. Yeah. Mothers is out front. Maguire's,

I'm so sorry. And like we were saying, Brett, that's on the Roadster Shop chassis. That's the

whole point was to do the sort of the turnkey solution. Wow. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Brad?

What? What was your, was there something else you saw that we didn't?

You know, I hate, I hate saying that because there's so many nice cars there and they,

they really. Did Bobby Allaway have a car there this year? Did not have a car there this year.

But that black Mustang that the Ring Brothers had was phenomenal. Yeah, they call it King's Hang.

Yeah. King's Hang. The 69 Mach 1. And Gary, who used to work for me, who's now their designer,

their top guy, he did, he did the Aston Martin and he did that car and he's done all those.

He kind of walked me through it. Yeah, we talked to him. Yeah. Yeah, very nice guy. Yeah, Gary

Regal. Gary Regal, yeah. Yeah. He's done work for me too. He just kind of walked me through

some of the stuff and it was just, you know, I always liked that because then you get kind of the

inside look and things that you don't notice at first that are so subtle and so nice, you know.

Like how did you terminate that line? It just, it's genius. Oh, my sharpie ran out.

You know, on, if you picture a 69 Mustang, any of the Mustangs back then, but the 69

Mustang has kind of the tri-bar taillights, right? Yeah. It's the three red lines for the,

so on that car, they've done this before on another Ring Brothers like 69 Mustang is the

side scoops in the quarter panels, which are normally fake. On the Ring Brothers car,

it's widened. Those side scoops behind the front doors on the quarter panel are functional.

Air comes in and then it goes out the back in between the three, the tri-bar taillights. Oh,

wow. So if you look at that car from the rear, you see the three taillights, but each one has

like a cavity going through it, you know, like there's an advance through it goes right through

the car. It's really cool. So instead of going blink, blink, blink, it goes blink, poof, blink,

poof, blink, blink, pretty much, pretty much. Yeah. But, but when you, when you think about that,

you think about like how much work that is. You could take the side scoops on the Mustangs

and turn them functional as to be like, like brake vents, right? You just make the scoop,

you do some flex, yeah, some flex tube and you go down to the, you know, to the brake,

but this goes through front to rear and now you're like, oh, now that's a lot of work because it

can't just be open and just like fill the trunk and with air and like, you need to make like.

You got to build boxes out of metal that go. Yeah, out of all of it, out of all of it. It's cool.

We're Ring Brothers budgetary. They're probably carbon fiber. Right, right. Yeah.

But titanium screws. Yeah. Larry Chen had a GT-R, R34 I think he had there.

Oh, it was all the ducting, all the turbo. No, it's the bright blue one. It just really looked

nice. Just, I don't even think it was like even modified. It was just so clean and such a good

blue that it just, just detailed to the, to the nines that it just looked amazing. That was there.

Yeah, some, some pretty, some pretty incredible cars. Well, not custom cars. I mean, come on,

the Ferrari P1. I mean, that, that's just, wow, right? Oh, the red one or P2. That red one that

was there? Yeah, was there P1, P2, P3, P4? I don't, I can't tell them. P something, but man,

oh my God. Yeah, it was nice. It was very nice. You know, I'll tell you something that I saw that

I really respected and liked that was not a car was Honda's new apparel. I think I drug you guys

back there. Yeah, yeah, we saw it. Very detailed, very nice, very nicely done and very different

than what everyone else is doing. It was really, really cool. In fact, it was so nice that I ordered

a hoodie because I liked it so much. Now, Brad, you kind of were talking like Donald Trump a minute

ago. Are you okay? What? Because it was very nice. It was very, very nice. You are totally,

it was the best. It was the best. I think that's going to make a clip.

All right. What else was there? Is that it? What do you think about the outside area this year?

I never saw it. I never got out there. Only passing. I went out front.

I went out front to Magnaflow had a booth out there, which was which was good and Tremac.

So Tremac had a booth inside for the little transaxles and stuff, but outside was the full

lineup of aftermarket transmissions, right? The TKX, the Magnum six speed, the off-road

transmission, they had the whole lineup of things out there. So I went out there and talked with

them, but I don't know. It was like a little scattered and kind of disorganized and it was

monster trucks. Those big goofy trucks with the super lift and the ridiculous wheels,

I definitely appreciate how much work can go into those things. It's just not my cup of tea. It's

just not my style of thing. And for the love of God, when you guys do that parade or drive down

the strip, don't hit the stupid air horns. It's not pleasant for anybody. It's not funny. It's

just dumb. And nobody wants it. It just makes everybody mad. How old are you, Matt?

It really rattles his ear things. Yeah, it irritates my ear holes.

No, there were some great things outside. Like you said, mothers had two semis outside,

some of the other outdoor booths, but it did not seem to me as curated as it is in the past,

where it really was defined, where it really was, it seemed like, like a little bit,

what you said, Matt, haphazard thrown together. And then the other side was just a giant booth,

Hoonigan booth. And it felt, it felt to me a little too much, like overwhelming over there.

But the construction really, the construction rule a lot.

There were some constructions. Well, I will say outside, there's a tire company called Nexen,

and they did a phenomenal job. They had this really long booth that went like

almost from the Renaissance Hotel to the escalator to the monorail. Like this long booth,

the whole suite of tires that they have and are launching. And then they were hosting

some kind of like discussion or like game show type of thing that was going on over there.

And that was well done, good, like product display. They brought out the tires and the

right info cards, and they did a good job with that. But I never saw it. I didn't see anything.

I think, I think Brad, we crossed the Toyo tent like out back. Yes, we went through the Toyo tunnel.

Yep. Yeah, the Toyo tunnel. And then I think out front along the million turbo truck,

like going out to that section. And that's, that's all I saw. Yeah.

Another thing I saw online that really made me laugh and smile was a guy did a video

of all the crazy names of the mainly Chinese tire companies. And he walked around and he goes,

and I wish I could remember some of them because they were so funny and the way he presented it.

It was just like, okay, now I'm not going to say anything, but I'm going to turn around

and you're going to read it. And, and you know, it was just like, oh my God, do they know what

that means? It was, it was, it was, it was, I know, I know, I know long tires. Yeah, long tires or

whatever it was. It was, it was hilarious. And then, and then there were others where it was like,

almost like the same name of an American company, but not, you know, and yeah, it was,

that's too funny. I like when, when the Chinese companies are called like okay tires or, or like,

like okay beverage, you know, it reminds me of when I was in junior high school,

my boarding school somewhere, our house parent always had basic products. This was back east

in Lake Blossom, New York. He had like basic beer, basic spaghetti, basic sauce. And it was

just like white with black. Great. Yeah. Yeah. It was just a grayscale label and just said basic.

And I love, I love that. It's like okay tires, okay wipers, you know, okay oil.

Yeah. Like there was one wheel company there and you know, you've heard of wheel pros, right?

Right. Right. And there was a big Chinese company and they had all these cast aluminum wheels,

three piece wheels, things like that. And across the top in the same font, it said

we pros. Oh, no. It couldn't even do wheel, wheel bros. Yeah. Wheel bros would have been better.

That would have been funny. That would have been funny. Oh, we, we are wheel bros.

Aaron, you just mentioned this, but I don't see if I can. Yes, I don't. That one. Yes.

How many turbos, 20 turbos? What is that thing? I don't know. I wonder if it's like the old,

the old carburetors where they had, you know, just eight carburetors, but only the back two worked.

I wonder if it's kind of like that. I would imagine those all worked just something.

16 turbos. I don't know. That's, that's,

were they, assuming it's some eight cylinder, were they doing two turbos per cylinder?

I don't know. That's, that's just crazy. So how low a compression do you have to have for those

to work properly? I mean, it's just like, like, does every turbo run one pound of boost? Like,

there's just so much air blowing through. At that point, it's not about performance, obviously. It's,

it's just about, oh my God, we're talking about it. So then, I mean, if you think about it,

you'd have to run all of those turbos so slow that, that it can't run well, right? No, no. I mean,

how do you get all that to work? Did you hear it when it was pulling out, Matt?

Did you hear what it sounded like? Oh, no, I didn't. I didn't. Because there was a video of it,

and I expected it to be this big, like, and it didn't have that much noise, you know?

I just don't think you're barely moving the turbos. It's like, you know, you can't,

like we were just saying when you, when you got up, you know, at one or two pounds of boost,

times 16 turbos, it's moving all of the air. I'd say boost, but you probably

spin the turbos just barely and it creates, you know, 10 pounds of boost because there's so many

turbos creating that. Oh, do you, you didn't read the sign, obviously. It's, that's his air

conditioning system. Oh, right, right, right. I'm just surprised it used a bunch of little tiny ones.

Like, like, like, like for, for those diesel generators and like, you know, like the diesel

tractors, have you seen those little tiny in my diesel? There's these little tiny diesel turbos,

yeah. What's that little plastic toy with the turbo, like a fidget spinner, but it's a little,

push it in the little plastic turbo spins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That thing. Oh, it was good.

I mean, you know what? I, I was genuinely worried the first day, like I said in the last,

opening of the last show that, you know, things looked really quiet and I was like, wow. And

then it just, everybody came in the next day on Tuesday or excuse me, on Wednesday and just,

you know, started every day, got busier and busier and more people, more enthusiasm, more

excitement. And it was, it was definitely fun. I mean, I didn't take a lot of photos. I didn't

shoot a lot of video. I just posted a video, you know, I don't know what's going on. My wife's

birthday post got, I don't know, worked a 37,000 views, but my SEMA post has like 1723 views.

And last night it had like 722 views. I mean, just going, what is going on with social media?

Like, how did it get so bad? I'm not that I care, but you know, we're trying to, you know,

help a brother out and give, give thanks to all our friends at SEMA and C-Tech and the companies

that, you know, move us along. And I can't get any traction on the post to say thank you. It's

just like, what is going on with social media? I don't get it. I'm old. I'm old. Yeah. I'm old.

Yeah. I don't really know how it works, but there's probably because there's so much

similar content being tagged. And then when you post something. I don't know.

SEMA's weird. It's almost like you got to put it up the day of, because by Saturday, Sunday,

everybody's seen it. I know. I just, I was, I was still traveling. I was, I was burning.

Do you guys go by the Lavrack booth? The Lavrack booth. Yes. No, no, no, not Lavrack. Lavrack.

They were in the Chinese section. Is that the Chinese knockoff version? Yeah.

Yeah. Brad and I went back up to, to Lavrack and then we saw some of the new

parts that they have. So I think Brad put together his wish list.

Exciting. They have drawers on the table now, right? I guess big table. So that's cool.

That's very cool. The drawers and the pullout shelf, which I already have a use form because I'm,

you know, right now I have these metal parts bins on the shelf underneath. And it's kind of a waste

because I've got this little metal parts bin, takes a little bitty space, but there's all this empty

space behind it. Yeah. Where if I had the shelf or the, or the drawer, now I could pull that out,

put lug nuts and everything in there and make a lot of sense. So. But now let, I actually didn't

see that because I saw them at the very end of the show. I finally got over there and was able to

say hi, but, and Ryan had already left. Yeah. But I haven't seen anybody do a pass through

drawer. Like you can access the same drawer from either side.

They didn't have that, but they did have. Yeah, they, they do back to back drawers, but not one

that goes. Of course everybody does back to back drawers, but I'm saying, what if they had a drawer

that went all the way out on one side, but it also went all the way out on the other side?

I gotta tell Ryan, I haven't seen that yet. That's kind of interesting. It would just be about

can he source the tracks that do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just, it has to be a

track system that goes one way and goes the other. So. Yeah. But Michael, it's a Traxxas.

Yeah. Ooh, I did see the cool Traxxas. Traxxas, by the way, because you just, I know you were

making a joke, but Traxxas, the overseas car company, they did like the anniversary edition

big foot. It's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I walked right past it. I didn't look at that.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm telling you, I didn't get to see a lot. It just seemed like it was so more social

than it was. I either got trapped in a section and just got bombarded everywhere I went or,

or, or I just, I just ran into people along the way and just didn't get very far out. But

I feel like I didn't look, I just went to see our friends, but I feel like I didn't look at anything

this year. So we, it's funny you mentioned that. So these great guys in, in Canada,

Epic Rod and Customs, I spoke to them a bunch of times on the phone. They built me a front

suspension for my 95 Ford Lightning, which I have, I haven't put in yet. And I just never met the guys.

And then we were at the Roadster Shop party and I don't know what time that ended and we left

almost one 30 or something like that. And we're just, we're just walking and then we just get

out into the street and I'm walking behind this group of people that left the same party we did.

I'm looking ahead. I'm like, that guy's jacket, that logo is familiar. And it was the Epic Rod

and Custom guys. And everyone was like, hey, you guys are from Canada, right? And they were,

they were so nice. And we ended up, we were just standing there for probably 30 or 40 minutes,

just catching up, having a great conversation. I'm going to have to have them on one of the

podcasts at some point. But talk about great, what great dudes, just so nice, great fabricators,

by the way, do good work. And it was so great to see them there, two of the guys there.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, you just don't know, like you just run into people that you haven't seen in a

while or even haven't met before. And how many times have you run into people who were like,

yeah, we're like social media buddies and we never met in person. Yeah, exactly.

Several people I said, fine, nice to finally meet you in person. That was so nice.

Yeah. And these guys, I love their work. And they were referred to me,

excuse me, by somebody else. And then I liked what they were doing. We had some great conversations,

hired them, still never met them until now. Wow. Yeah, I had, so across the street from my dad's

warehouse in, in, in, in Centerfell are the Francini brothers, which are an amazing team of,

of upholsters and, and, and some detailed stuff that are just like a magic actor.

Yeah. Believe me, they, they definitely work so magic in these cars. I mean, you know,

concourse cars, you know, they're phenomenal. But, but, but one of the guys ran up and said,

Aaron, you know, the Francinis, I said, oh, oh my gosh, you know, just like totally out of the blue,

like, you know, it takes a second sometimes. And, you know, I know I could probably call

some people the wrong names and, you know, please excuse all of that at SEMA as, as you know, it,

it is absolute stimulation overload. It was nice this year, though. We ran into a lot of people

that we, that came up and mentioned the show. And yeah, yeah. Like you said, that you only know

online and now you know them in, in, in the real world, you know. And it was nice because, like

you said, we did meet some people that specifically said, oh, I mean, listen to the show for a year,

like Stacy David's guy. And he's like, I mean, when I was a kid, just before I worked for Stacy,

you know, I used to listen to you guys on, on the way to work and, you know, great, great stuff.

So big shout out to everybody who's been listening. Thank you so much. And it does count. It does

mean a lot. Shift and steer. We launched at SEMA and this was the 11th year. Yeah. Really cool.

Brad, why do you keep disappearing? What's that? You keep disappearing. I just went one,

one time. One time I ran away to take a phone call.

All right, guys. What do you say? We want to wrap it up? Okay. Sure. Sure. Should we wrap it up?

Let's wrap it up. Have we gone long enough that that late halfway mark is now the halfway mark?

Have we gone far enough? Yes. Is that, wait, we got to, we got to wait 30 seconds.

Okay. We're good. We're good to go. All right. Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening. Thanks for

coming up to us at SEMA. And thanks to everybody that we saw there and to everybody that, that

we're partnered with and have fun with. And we'll be back next week. And that's a promise, not a

threat. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. Shopify is the home of the number one checkout

on the planet and the not so secret secret with shop pay that boosts conversions up to 50%,

meaning way less cards go abandoned and way more sales going through. So if you're into growing

your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are

scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between.

Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout that

skins uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period for three months at shopify.com

slash westwood one all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash westwood one to upgrade your selling today.

shopify.com slash westwood one

SEMA 2025 Wrap-Up, SEMA Fails, Party At SEMA - Shift & Steer EP544

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