What You Learn After Spending Four Days at the World’s Best Car Show

James Reeves—best known from TFBTV and Jimports—takes on the SEMA Show in Las Vegas for the first time.

After years of navigating the chaos of SHOT Show, James finds SEMA operating on an entirely different level, with over-the-top builds, high-dollar restomods, and the kind of engineering only the aftermarket world can produce.

In this debut episode of the Automotive Icons podcast, he walks through the highlights, surprises, and Vegas absurdities that shaped his first full immersion into the automotive industry’s biggest custom-car spectacle.

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Transcript:

I’ve been to Vegas a couple dozen times, mostly for work—that’s my official story, anyway. But as many times as I’ve been, I had never been to SEMA, and I’ve always wanted to go.

Now, what is SEMA? Honestly, I still don’t know what the acronym stands for. We were walking around asking exhibitors, “Hey, do you know what SEMA stands for?” and half of them didn’t know either. But I do know what it is—and it’s pretty awesome.

So me and my camera guy/assistant producer Adam Moss—former Tommy Hilfiger model, seriously—land in Vegas and check into the Hilton Grand Vacations, just down the street from the Las Vegas Convention Center where SEMA is held. All night, we can hear people doing donuts.

Adam asks, “You think that’s related to SEMA?” And I’m like, “No, it’s probably people from SEMA in parking garages making TikToks of themselves doing felonies.” I’ve seen this before in New Orleans. I work downtown near the Superdome—there’ll be a big game, like the Falcons, and on Monday you can see donut tracks on the top level of the parking garage.

So that’s what I figured was happening. I thought, “There’s no way SEMA is condoning people doing donuts all night that we can hear from our hotel room.”

Sure enough, I was wrong.

I’m a bit of a redneck—I’m from Pensacola, Florida originally—so it almost pains me that I didn’t find out until the last day of SEMA that they actually have a dedicated burnout and drift area. It’s massive. They took an entire parking lot and set it aside just for guys to do burnouts.

There’s an announcer going, “All right, ladies and gentlemen, next we’ve got Billy Mitchum in his 1994 Chevy Silverado 1500. He’s put a V12 from a Ferrari 550 Maranello in it. It’s got duallys, and he’s about to let ’er rip. Billy, enter the ring!” And then Billy comes out and there’s so much smoke you can’t even see the truck.

It was incredible. I wish I’d known about it earlier—I probably would’ve spent most of the show right there. As it is, I’m probably halfway to rubber-induced lung issues because we sat and watched and filmed for a while.

These guys are absolutely thrashing their cars—no holding back. You’ve got hundreds of people watching, sometimes thousands at peak times. Every now and then you hear an engine let go, and the crowd goes, “Ooooh.” Then the announcer jumps back on: “Oh, that’s a bad break. All right, Billy, we’ll get the tow truck out there. Next up we’ve got Ray Stevenson in his Camaro!”

My point is, SEMA was not what I expected for my first time—and that’s what I want to talk about today.

Who Am I and Why Was I at SEMA?

Before we go further, a quick intro. My name is James Reeves. Nice to meet you.

I like going to Vegas. I like seeing people, and I like seeing products that people are genuinely excited about. That’s fun for me. So I was really excited to finally go to SEMA.

About a year ago, I started another YouTube channel called Jimports. It’s a dumb name—I’ll explain it some other time. In my normal life, I’m a lawyer and a partner at a law firm called Melody Marks King. I’m licensed in Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama. That’s my full-time job.

On the side, I run a fairly large YouTube channel. The company that owns TFBTV also owns AutoGuide and autoguide.com. They said, “Hey James, how would you like to go to SEMA?” I said, “Absolutely.” Then they said, “And we’ll pay you.” Absolutely again.

I wasn’t fully prepared for what SEMA would be, but I was happy to go.

What Is This Podcast?

You’re listening to (or watching) the first episode of Automotive Icons.

This podcast is going to be generally car-related, with a pretty wide net—projects, events, people, builds, history, all of it. If you’re listening somewhere that lets you leave comments, tell me what you’d like to hear about. If I think it’s cool, we’ll do it.

We’re also going to have guests. We’ve already reached out to some people I’m really excited about. Hopefully I can convince my buddy Nathan Murs at Porsche Club of America to join us—he really knows his stuff and people love hearing from him.

How Big Is SEMA, Really?

SEMA is massive. It makes SHOT Show look like the Milton, Florida County Fair.

No disrespect to the Milton County Fair—I’m from the Panhandle—but SEMA is huge. We were there for four days and still didn’t make it to every hall. We spent most of our time in the South Hall and Central Hall, which were amazing, and then had to basically sprint through the North Hall on the last day, missing a ton of stuff.

There was an entire booth in the North Hall with cars from Fast and Furious, for example. And that’s another key point: this isn’t like the Detroit Auto Show where you’re seeing “Here’s the 2027 Ford Focus.” This is not primarily about new production cars, though there were a few.

SEMA is really about the automotive industry and the aftermarket. A lot of the cars there are attention-getters in company booths—rolling business cards.

For example, Mothers (the car care company) had some of the coolest cars in their booth. There was a ’69 Mustang from Ringbrothers that was one of the most incredible builds I’ve ever seen. I did a few videos for AutoGuide from SEMA where we covered some of the coolest cars on display.

The theme is: these are “look at me” cars in the best possible way. Many are insanely expensive, fully custom builds.

The Builds: From Half-Million Mustangs to “Budget” Restomods

There were high-dollar restomods everywhere. I saw fully revamped classic Mustangs—Shelby-style ’67–’68s—going for around $350,000. Mother of God. That’s a mortgage.

By the end of the week, I found myself thinking, “Can I get that $350,000 car? That seems like a bargain.”

One of my favorite Porsches there was a 911 called “Jaded” by a company called Project 6. They’re basically the “budget” alternative (in air quotes) to Singer or Ruf. Singer and Ruf build restomod 964s for a million dollars plus. Project 6 does similar work using ’80s 911 SCs and Carreras and sells them for only half a million.

We talked to Alex from Project 6 about “Jaded”—how they pulled design cues from different generations, tailored everything, and tried to keep production numbers low. It was still insanely expensive, but compared to a million-dollar Singer, it’s a “deal.”

And that’s the SEMA energy: wild, meticulously built, deeply personal cars that you almost never see in the real world.

Beyond the Supercars

There were supercars too—Pagani, Praga, and other ultra-exotics. Some of them were in the multi-million-dollar range. Beautiful, rare, impressive. But generally, that stuff doesn’t do much for me. I don’t get excited about a car that costs more than half a million dollars. It’s so unattainable it might as well be fictional.

What does interest me is creativity: people dumping a ton of money and time into a project because they love it, not because it’s a status symbol. SEMA had a lot of that.

It’s very different from a traditional auto show where a bunch of anonymous new models sit under bright lights with zero soul. At SEMA, the parking lot alone was insane.

There was a guy with what he called a “Monte Cam”—a mashup of a Monte Carlo and an El Camino, sitting on a C6 Corvette chassis. Wild, totally impractical, and deeply personal. He’d clearly poured his heart and wallet into this thing.

That’s the kind of stuff I loved: projects nobody built for resale value, just for the joy of building them.

Even the OEMs Play

The big manufacturers also show up and play along in fun ways—not just with concept cars, but with genuinely interesting builds.

Infiniti had what I’m pretty sure was a QX80 stuffed with a GT-R engine, making around 1,000 horsepower, with wild ground effects and visible intercoolers behind the grille. I thought it looked disgusting, personally, but I respect the effort. It was fun, and it got attention.

Toyota built something called the Turbo Trail Cruiser, based on a 60 Series Land Cruiser. I used to own a 60 Series, so that hit close to home. They bought a tired, one-owner truck from Texas with rusty floorboards and a cracked dash, then fully restored and restomodded it, dropping in a twin-turbo engine from one of their newer trucks.

Beyond drawing eyes to the booth, the point was to demonstrate the idea of crate motors—“Here’s what you can do with this engine if we sell it to you.” As a Land Cruiser nerd (I’m literally wearing a Land Cruiser shirt as I say this), I thought it was brilliant.

There was also an FJ40 Land Cruiser that had been electrified—converted to EV—with a Tremec Electric GT setup. Some people consider that blasphemy. I thought it was a work of art.

We talked to the builder: it used a 70 kWh pack, DC fast charging, a ton of torque through a single-speed reduction box, and it retained the original transfer case with 2H/4H/4L. If you’re in coastal California and you see a mint green electric FJ40, it might be that one.

JDM Heaven

A surprising amount of JDM—actual Japanese domestic market cars—were there. Not just Japanese brands sold in the U.S., but true JDM imports.

Larry Chen was there, signing books and displaying some of his cars, including a Datsun Z build. If you don’t know him, he’s one of the best automotive photographers in the world. Cars and photography are two of my passions, so seeing his work in person was a highlight.

That’s another thing about SEMA: you just stumble across Easter eggs. You see a cool car, look closer, and realize it belongs to someone notable.

Influencers Everywhere

There were a lot of influencers and content creators—way more than at SHOT Show. I’m part of the problem, obviously, so I say that with full self-awareness.

At times it felt like everyone had a camera. There was one influencer who kept redoing the same line: “As you can see here, the wheel wells…” over and over again in front of a truck. It slowed things down a bit.

By mid-week, you could tell people had influencer fatigue. Maybe a third of people would pause and ask, “Hey, is it okay if I walk through your shot?” The rest just walked right through, which I understand. It was packed.

Battle of the Builders

One of the coolest things at SEMA is Battle of the Builders.

In one of the halls, they line up the best builds from the show. Throughout the week, the builders bring their cars up onto a stage, fire them up, and talk about the project. Some of these builds took years to complete.

There was a Porsche 356—predecessor to the 911—that was beautifully done. It won one of the categories (sport/import/compact) and made the overall final four. Battle of the Builders alone is worth the price of admission.

Should You Go to SEMA?

I was told that on Friday, the general public is allowed into the show. As media, we got in a bit early each day, which was nice for filming.

If you’re listening to this podcast, you probably care enough about cars that I can safely say: yes, SEMA is worth it at least once.

At the burnout pit alone, you could spend a day just watching people sacrifice tires and engines. The parking lot was full of wild stuff: DeLoreans, classic Broncos, International Scouts, JDM trucks like Nissan Patrols—things you rarely see in person.

There truly is something for everyone.

Practical Tips: Hotels, Food, and Survival

If you decide to go:

Book your hotel and flight early. We did it late, and the room near the convention center was expensive.

Wear comfortable shoes. You will walk a lot.

Bring your own food. The convention food is absurdly expensive. Think $12 for a tiny pizza or $25 for a basic burger.

Bring a water bottle. There are refill stations, and Vegas is dry. I’m used to humidity—Florida-born, 20 years in New Orleans—so the dry air wrecks me. Nosebleeds, itchy skin, the whole deal. But I still refuse to use lotion. That’s my own weird problem.

There was a McDonald’s near Circus Circus that felt like it did 25% of its annual business during SEMA alone. Packed with people wearing SEMA badges.

I don’t know the exact attendance numbers, but it was unbelievable.

Final Thoughts

SEMA was unbelievable. If you’re a car person, you owe it to yourself to go at least once. Grab four or five friends, split a room, stay somewhere like the Best Western or Casino Royale, and go immerse yourself.

At minimum, walk the parking lots and watch the burnout pit. You’ll see things you’ll never forget—some of it brilliant, some of it ridiculous, all of it memorable.

I’m honored I got to go, and I hope it’s not my last time. I also hope I see some of you there one day.

Next episode, we’re talking about whether classic Porsches are a good investment. I scraped data from thousands of auction results on sub-$100,000 cars—truly attainable classics—and I’m going to tell you what the numbers say. Lock in your guesses now.

Thanks for listening, thanks for hanging out, and take care.

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