Built to Be Driven: The OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Lineup at SEMA 2026

Most cars at SEMA are built to be looked at. The cars in the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car paddock are built to be driven hard, then looked at. OPTIMA (@optimabatteries) says the invitational was hatched at the SEMA Show, and its qualifiers look for cars that are "really track-capable, street comfortable and show-stopping in their finish and attention to detail." On Thursday, Nov. 5, we watched them roll out of the lot under their own power.

The best example on Thursday, Nov. 5, was a squarebody. David Carroll's yellow and white 1974 K5 Blazer, No. 126, runs a twin-turbo 5.3 liter V8 on No Limit Engineering suspension, and ChevyHardcore and BangShift put it at about 1,000 horsepower. OPTIMA's results list it 18th at the 2025 invitational. A family-size SUV running with Corvettes is the whole series in one car.

The paddock around it covered a lot of ground: a Tesla Model S wearing No. 205, Corvettes from the C3 to the C8, a Chevrolet Malibu wagon with its hood up, an SW20 Toyota MR2 and a Datsun Z. The FAFB Racing No. 17, a blue and pink 2020 C8 Corvette Z51, carried a placard that lists Brent Cajthaml as owner and driver. Next door, OPTIMA's display stacked cars three high on lifts. This is a look at the cars, not the standings.

The paddock

The OPTIMA display