The SEMA Show is the one time in the year, that bringing your best may not be good enough. Just about every big name builder out there takes it up “a level or two” for this show. For many manufacturers, this is the time to introduce new products… for others it is simply a time to reconnect with people within the industry… and for us, it is a time to get overloaded on the coolest stuff in the world. The SEMA Show is always host to thousands of people from all over the world trying to find out what is hot and what’s not. It didn’t take us very long to quickly realize that the accessory market for trucks is booming. This isn’t a new trend, but with the recent changes within the industry, it is a trend that we are happy to see continuing to grow.
Many companies were launching new products to expand their existing lines and then there were a lot of manufacturers entering the truck market for the first time. This is always good news for consumers because it not only gives us lots of options, but often times, “fresh” eyes on our industry can bring new innovations. These innovations may seem extremely obvious to others, but no one had thought of it before (or at least brought it to market). We are excited to see these new manufacturers grow and do well.
One trend that we did see was more gas powered trucks than we had seen in years. It was the first time that we had to actually look at the trucks to figure out if they were gas or diesel. While it is always neat to see some variety, we were a little shocked at how many of the ¾ ton trucks were gas.
Either way, the accessory market doesn’t discriminate and more trucks on the road, means more potential customers, which means more companies are going to try and enter the marketplace or expand on their current product line. A great example of that is the wheel manufacturers. American Force, Wheel Pros, and Weld Racing all are bringing a ton of new and innovative products to the market. Heck, American Force had close to 20 trucks in their booth alone showing off the different flavors of their new wheels.
With the show growing and more manufacturers displaying, the show is getting extremely spread out. This year there were booths in the LVH, North Hall, Center Hall, the breeze way connecting the Center Hall and the South Hall together, upstairs South Hall, downstairs South Hall, outside South Hall, in the parking lot in front of the Convention Center and there were trucks on display on the south side of the Convention Center. Just about everywhere you look, there was someone displaying something. So, we put together a list of some of the top trucks, in our opinion. This “by no means” was all of the trucks there, just some of the best.