DOWN WITH E3
Two Sides Of A Coin
By Eddie Habeck III
Posted on Feb 8, 2006

Everyone gets all hyper about SEMA.  Unfortunately, sometimes it’s like taking too much Nyquil — you look all forward to it, but then after you’re on it, well, its not that great. I know this after attending several of the shows thus far, and, as such, I realized that they have their pros and cons, just like anything else in our wacky lives full of OD’ing on cold medicine.

So, here is SEMA through my non-glasses wearing eyes; Ten things I liked and ten things where the guy that thought them up should be jigged with a rusty screwdriver in the abdomen while doing a sit-up. These are in no particular order here, since I can barely count to ten in the first place unless I’m using my fingers, which I’m trying to use to type with at the moment.

I’m Down With:
Wide body everything. It’s amazing that the days of the ‘four-piece body kit’ are practically dead. Kits these days are eight or more pieces and are including some extreme styling enhancements.

Showcasing big rims on Donks, Boxes, and Bubbles. Ok, no I’m not intoxicated — let me explain, in case your not downloading what I’m uploading. A trend started in the dirty south of taking, say a ‘72 Caprice, drenching it with candy paint, lifting it, then slapping on a set of 26-inch rims - this is known as a ‘Donk’. From what I can tell, they’re used for transport to pick up hoes and play crunk music, I guess. I’m defending them because it’s a much more out-of-the-ordinary way to display a company’s jumbo rims compared to putting them on another boring Escalade.  

One-off sets of wheels. It seems like more and more custom projects are getting a rim made exclusively for them. How pimp is it to have a rim that you can call all your own? Everything else on rides today is about uniqueness and being exclusive — time to add rims to that list.

Wrapping everything in Carbon Fiber. Yeah, it’s been a trend for a while, but never before have people been using it on every facet of the vehicle. Roofs, headliners, wheels — anything that you can think of putting it on was probably done somewhere in SEMA.

Lifted trucks with big TV’s in the wheel-wells. All right, I’ve seen this being done on show trucks before, but now I saw them driving around on the streets of Vegas. I guess it’s not even a ‘show thing’ any longer, but, rather, one more way you pimp out your own personal monster truck to make it even more useless.  

Really hot female DJ’s. A significant sidetrack from the cars. It seems like the only thriving DJ’s today are females that must have been supermodels in a past life. Playing music isn’t good enough anymore unless you’re wearing a bikini and writhing on your turntables like you’re giving a lap dance.  
 
Rims with diamonds in them. This is so dumb that it’s cool. One of the best places that I’ve seen diamonds in recent times next to teeth. Oooh, I want to be so icy.

Industry parties where the company spends a $#!%load of money. I tried to make as many as feasible per night. I had a really good SEMA-after-party to SEMA-show time/ratio factor this year — that means that I spent considerably more time BS’ing at industry parties then I spent BS’ing at the actual SEMA convention. The food (lobster) and setting (exotic) of the Cooper Tire party was a definite thumbs up. I also enjoyed the Dub party because I can chill with Coolio and reminisce about growing up and living in Gangsta’s Paradise.

Use of suede over fiberglass in stereo installs. I guess some flash is taking a backseat to class. About damn time!

Smut Peddlers. These little guys hustling outside of the show soliciting sex services are just like the companies displaying in the convention center - they’re all pushing something on you that you want, but you’re just not sure that you want to pay for.  

I’m not down with:
Right-hand-drive conversions: I don’t know, maybe its cool, but it seems like a lot of work for not much in return except some little kids saying “Look, Daddy — the steering wheel is on the wrong side!” Wouldn’t it be better invested in the car’s performance or something? I don’t care that its mad-JDM, yo — if you want to sit on the other side of your car that desperately just get a friend to drive so you can ride shotgun.

The new toned-down model dress code. I see nothing wrong with girls wearing a body-painted tire on them if they want to.

30-inch Rims. Yes, they look sick, but how big are we going to get until something devastating happens? One of these days some poor SUV is going to be spinning something like a 46-inch rim and it will just take off like a helicopter and fly into an albatross and blow up.

30-inch TV’s in sport compact cars. The ones where they have colossal monitors that sit like 6 inches from the passenger’s face? Ever notice that all of these people are wearing glasses? If your TV is larger then your windshield, you need a smaller TV- or a bigger car.

Having your car featured in the booth that sells car covers. Um, your car is covered and nobody can see it.
 
Having fender flares does not make your car a Wide Body. It makes your car a car with fender flares.  People need to understand the difference between the two. There’s nothing wrong with flares — they are a cool, simple add on — just make sure that you’ve got the rim fit in there right, and that you’re not calling it a damn wide body.

Wrapping your interior with that wanna-be carbon fiber crap. It looks cheesy and you’re not fooling anyone into believing that it’s real carbon fiber. With the real deal wrapping becoming so common place these days, it’s a poor crack at being down with the craze.  

Companies trying to make the Ford Five Hundred Sedan look tuner-cool. It’s just too big, and too, um, Ford.
Spokes models that don’t know anything. If you’re in a booth and dressed like, well, barely dressed, we don’t expect you to know anything. If you’re a ‘spokes model’ dressed like a business professional, you better have some product knowledge.  

Industry snitches. We all know them, and they go around the show blabbing about everyone else’s ideas when they need to keep their lips zipped. (More on that in the sidebar.)