SEMA Show-Offs
We’ve been bringing you some (remote) coverage of this year’s SEMA show, the annual desert soirée in Las Vegas where privateers roll out some wild builds while manufacturers jockey for attention with a few creations of their own.
Not everything at SEMA is a pickup truck with 20 turbochargers sticking out of the hood, though that is the type of extreme machine on which the show plies its trade. After all, there are also plenty of will-they-or-won’t-they type of rigs appearing from OEMs, some of which actually give a bit of inkling as to what the brand might have in the hopper for future production - or at least for a ‘build your own adventure’ type of thing through a parts catalog. Hey, it’s all money, right?
[Images: Honda, Toyota, Ram]
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Occupying exactly that seat at the table is this Passport TrailSport HRC Concept from Honda, showing up as proof someone within the company recognizes why Subaru is making bank with its relatively new Wilderness trim. Jacked up about 2.5 inches and bedazzled with all manner of popular off-road gear.
Gear, that is, like a low-profile roof rack and plenty of lights, meaningful changes like modified front/rear bumpers and extra underbody shielding are great additions to an already good looking machine. This thing is totally buildable - if not by Honda itself then by enterprising dealers raiding their own parts catalogs.
Right on the other end of the spectrum is the tremendously insane Toyota FJ Bruiser Concept which started life as a project with a 1966 Toyota FJ45 Pickup Truck but turned into something completely different. Stuffing a modified version of Toyota’s 358 cubic-inch V8 engine it deploys at the NASCAR Cup level to make 725 horsepower would have been enough for most.
But the gonzo build team went ahead and engineered a freakin’ tank track on the rig’s underbelly, should ground clearance ever be an issue. To be clear, the team replaced the center skid plate with a tank-like track system that can be used to power out of high centered situations.
And since the track is controlled from the cockpit, the driver can stay securely seated with no need to unstrap and find something to tie off a winch. All this leaves unmentioned the Fox shocks, Eibach springs, and 42-inch BF Goodrich Krawler T/A KX tires.
Returning briefly to stuff a manufacturer can absolutely roll into a showroom right off the SEMA floor is the Dude package which Ram showed on its freshly Hemi-fied Ram 1500 pickup truck. Slathered in bright green and bearing the type of retro decals meant to evoke a popular sport trim package from the early 1970s, we feel Ram would quite easily sell every one it could make. Fun fact: Don Knotts was the original spokesman for this trim on what was then a Dodge truck.
