A Wrecked Murcielago, a Type R Prelude and a '55 Saved From the Eaton Fire: SEMA 2026's Day-One Reveals

Someone bought a wrecked 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago, cut it for Liberty Walk (founder Wataru Kato, @libertywalkkato) fenders, hung two Garrett turbos off the V12 and gave it a gated manual. That was the first big reveal of the 2026 SEMA Show on Tuesday morning, Nov. 3. By lunch, Central Hall had also seen a Honda Prelude with the drivetrain Honda won't give it, two Meguiar's anniversary builds, and a 1955 Chevy rebuilt for a family that lost everything in the Eaton Fire.

WD-40 and Throtl: the Liberty Walk Murcielago

This is the second WD-40 (@wd40brand) and Throtl (@throtl) collaboration, following their 2005 Ford GT, and it started with a crashed car. Torrey Pines Collision Center handled the full body restoration, fit the Liberty Walk Silhouette WORKS Murcielago GT EVO widebody and laid down the custom paint.

The LP640's 6.5-liter V12 was fully built and fitted with a custom Garrett twin-turbo system on MoTeC engine management. The transmission is a Royalty Exotics six-speed gated manual conversion. Air Lift Performance air suspension sets the height, the wheels are custom HRE Performance forgings, and AP Upholstery did a bespoke Alcantara and leather interior. WD-40's spec sheet doesn't list an output figure, so we aren't printing one. Throtl documented the whole rebuild in a five-part YouTube series.

It wasn't the only Murcielago rebuilt from a loss at the show. Out in the Toyo Tires Treadpass, Bisimoto (@bisimoto) showed a 2002 Murcielago that Toyo's build sheet describes as a fire-loss rebuild, with a Civic Type R four cylinder in place of the V12. Two very different answers to the same problem.

Idemitsu and Throtl: the Prelude Honda didn't build

Throtl's second reveal of the morning was on the Idemitsu Lubricants (@idemitsulubes) stand, booth 23753, at 10 a.m. It was year two of that partnership. The car is a new Honda Prelude with its hybrid drivetrain swapped out for the Civic Type R's turbocharged 2.0-liter K20C1 and six-speed manual. In stock form, that engine makes 315 hp in the Civic.

Throtl didn't leave it stock. The engine runs a Pure Turbos turbocharger upgrade with bigger fuel injectors and a fuel pump to match. Type R bumper pieces were reshaped to fit the Prelude, and a carbon hood made with Seibon carries the Type R's scoop. No final output figure has been released. Honda has never built a Prelude Type R and hasn't announced one.

It had company. Over at Honda Racing Corporation's booth, Hasport Performance (@hasport_performance) showed its own 2026 Prelude Club Racer with the same Type R engine and six-speed. That one is a time attack car, and its placard credits suspension tuning from the Integra Type S TCX race car. Two shops arriving at the same swap in the same year tells you what Honda fans want.

Meguiar's at 125: a Vantage GT3 and a million-dollar F-100

Meguiar's closed out its 125th anniversary with an 11:30 a.m. press conference at Central Hall booth 22357. As usual, it paired something old and American with something modern and exotic.

YouTuber TJ Hunt (@tjhunt_) brought a 2013 Aston Martin Vantage built into a GT3-style street car. It has a modified Aston Martin Racing GT3 body kit (deep front splitter, vented hood, side skirts, diffuser, wing), a hand-built naturally aspirated 4.7-liter V8 with VelocityAP GT4-spec headers and exhaust, and a six-speed manual with a VelocityAP clutch. It sits on Nitron R1 coilovers with an AP Racing air jack system and 20-inch HRE R101 Lightweight wheels. The paint is Porsche Paint to Sample Macadamia Metallic, not the British Racing Green you'd expect. It's Hunt's fourth GT3 conversion after a Ferrari 458 GT3 (2020), a BMW M4 GT3 shown at SEMA 2023 and a Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo at SEMA 2025.

The other half of the booth was Fat Fender Garage's (@fatfendergarage) 1956 Ford F-100 "GT/FX," built in Gilbert, Ariz., for owner Tony Peressini. According to Meguiar's, the build was led by Jason Noel, took five years and cost more than $1 million. It runs a Gen 3 Coyote 5.0 with a Whipple supercharger and a 10-speed automatic. Meguiar's rates it at 725 hp. The cab is sectioned 2 inches, the roof and hood are pancaked, the fenders are widened, and a Mustang GT350 diffuser sits out back. The chassis is Fat Fender's own FF1 coilover platform, with six-piston Wilwood front brakes, 20-inch HRE wheels and champagne paint with a racing stripe. The stock grille stayed.

Foose and Coulson: a '55 rebuilt after the Eaton Fire

The most emotional reveal of the day came at 11:30 a.m. in the TMI Products (@tmiproducts) booth (24477). Ben Johnson's 1955 Chevrolet was destroyed, along with his home, when the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, Calif., in 2025. According to OnAllCylinders, it was his first car, bought when he was 16. Johnson won Coulson Aviation's (@coulsonaviation) Wildfire Vehicle Restoration Contest. Coulson Aviation maintains aerial firefighting aircraft, and the contest put Chip Foose (@chipfooseofficial) on the design.

The result is a new custom 1955 Delray that carries parts salvaged from the burned original. Foose Design supplied the complete interior, produced by TMI Products in Apex Leather and installed by Coulson Autosports (@coulsonautosports). Summit Racing, BluePrint Engines, CPP, Quick Performance, BFGoodrich, MagnaFlow, Kicker, Dynamat and Redline Gauges are credited as partners. "I'm incredibly proud to partner with Coulson Aviation and be a part of the RISE Program," Foose said in the build's release.

Four reveals, four very different builds: an exotic saved from the scrapyard, a Honda answering a question Honda won't, a brand turning 125, and a family car brought back from a fire.