SEMA 2026 From the Floor: A 1,300-HP Chevelle Champion, Desert-Ready Factory Rigs and the Builds Worth Finding

The build we kept talking about after the 2026 SEMA Show wasn't the 1,300-hp Chevelle that won Battle of the Builders, or the Jeep Wrangler concept that finally ditched the solid front axle. It was a rusted 1950s International Metro van sitting on the chassis of a wrecked C8 Corvette, built to sell fajitas and chasing a Guinness speed category. That's SEMA in one car. The headline hardware is real, and the thing you remember is parked three aisles over.

We walked the halls and the outdoor lots on Thursday, Nov. 5, and came home with about 900 photos. This is the whole show in one story: who won, what the automakers brought, and then the part that matters most to us, a walk through the builds we actually stood in front of, scene by scene. Where we went deeper, we point you to the full story.

The big picture

The show ran Nov. 3 to 6 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, trade only Tuesday through Thursday, with Friday opened to ticketed enthusiasts. According to SEMA, more than 2,200 brands exhibited, more than 400 of them for the first time, and attendees came from 140 countries. SEMA hasn't released an official attendance figure, so we aren't printing one. The biggest structural change was in West Hall, where SEMA expanded its powersports, side-by-side and adventure lifestyle section, and Harley-Davidson was among the exhibiting manufacturers. According to SEMA, it also announced a new Recreation, Powersports and Motorcycle (RPM) Council during show week.

The winners

Eddie Pettus of Eddie's Rod & Custom (@eddiesrodandcustom) won the 2026 SEMA Battle of the Builders presented by Mothers with his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle. SEMA lists a 1,300-hp twin-turbo LS3, a Bowler Performance 4L80 and a Roadster Shop chassis with cantilever independent rear suspension under a wedge-sectioned body, and Pettus told SEMA it took five years and more than 15,000 hours. He beat the other category winners in the final: Buddy Hale's 1955 Volkswagen Ghia (from his shop, Type One Restorations, @typeonerestorations), Mark Giambalvo's 1974 Chevrolet K10 (from Creative Rod & Kustom, @creativerodandkustom) and Jesse Rieger's 1969 Ford Mustang. The first Bike Builder Shootout went to Steven Iacona of Brooklyn's Iacona Custom Cycles (@iaconacustomcycles) with a Knucklehead built around a 1945 engine. Our story Eddie Pettus's 1,300-HP Chevelle Wins SEMA Battle of the Builders 2026 has the full Top 12.

At Thursday night's Industry Honors, Jay Leno got his Hall of Fame jacket on stage with Tim Allen (his class was inducted in July), Tony Stewart received the Robert E. Petersen Lifetime Achievement Award, Dawson Druesedow of 4 Wheel Performance was named Person of the Year and Tom's Refurb took Content Creator of the Year. Crush Customs (@crushcustoms_atl) of Marietta, Georgia, won the PRO Cup Challenge and the People's Choice Award with a pink 2026 Kia K5 called "Pink on Purpose," and SEMA says it is the first shop to take both. According to SEMA, Best Engineered Vehicle went to Kincer's (@kincerchassis) 1977 Ford F-100, a sleeper on an all-wheel-drive chassis the company designed to fit two-door, short-bed Ford trucks. The rest is in Jay Leno, Tony Stewart and Tom's Refurb Headline SEMA Industry Honors 2026.

The factory story, in brief

The automakers went to the desert. Jeep's (@jeep) Wrangler Scrambler SRT Concept pairs a 470-hp, 6.4-liter HEMI with the first independent front suspension on a Wrangler, developed with racer Casey Currie (@caseycurrie). Ford (@ford) built the Bronco Frostwarden around Megazilla 2.0, a supercharged 7.3-liter V8 Ford rates at more than 1,200 hp on race fuel. Nissan's (@nissanusa) Frontier RONIN wears turbochargers from the R35 GT-R NISMO, and Toyota's (@toyotausa) Crown Signia GT-S Concept sits nearly five inches lower on 21-inch wheels. Honda Racing Corporation (@hondaracing_us) brought a hybrid Passport Baja Spec Trophy Truck rated at more than 1,300 hp, alongside Felix Rosenqvist's (@frosenqvist) Indy 500 winner. The details are in SEMA 2026 Factory Builds: Jeep Ditches the Solid Axle, Ford Brings a 1,200-Plus-HP Bronco, and Honda's SEMA Booth Ran From a Broken 1969 Baja N600 to a 1,300-HP Hybrid Trophy Truck.

Opening day belonged to the aftermarket. WD-40 (@wd40brand) and Throtl (@throtl) showed a wrecked 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago rebuilt with a Liberty Walk (founder Wataru Kato, @libertywalkkato) body and Garrett twin turbos, Idemitsu (@idemitsulubes) and Throtl put the Civic Type R's engine and six-speed in a new Prelude, Meguiar's turned 125 with TJ Hunt's (@tjhunt_) Vantage GT3 and Fat Fender Garage's (@fatfendergarage) F-100, and Chip Foose (@chipfooseofficial) helped rebuild a 1955 Chevrolet Delray for an owner who lost his first car in the Eaton Fire. Ringbrothers (@ringbrothers) debuted "Billie," a 650-hp 1965 Pontiac GTO convertible, at the Gentex (@gentexcorporation) booth. All four opening-day reveals are in A Wrecked Murcielago, a Type R Prelude and a '55 Saved From the Eaton Fire: SEMA 2026's Day-One Reveals.

Outside: the lots and the truck culture

Start outside. SEMA's asphalt lots between the halls get treated like overflow, and on Thursday they held some of the best metal of the week. Along the monorail, an OBS-era Ford Bronco sat on a big lift in a green so dark it reads black, with gold fender flares, a gold bumper, a gold solid front axle and track bar, and green and gold multi-spoke wheels. It's 1990s two-tone truck culture turned all the way up.

A few rows over, a rusted Chevrolet cab-over lettered "Effi Towing" sat slammed on 22-inch dually wheels with a Mexican flag flying behind the cab. Its placard lists a 1953 COE with a carbureted 350, air suspension and custom upholstery, and credits the build to Effi Muniz and Effi Team in Mexico City. Muniz has been to SEMA before: Street Trucks featured his 1956 F-100, "The Red Head," which debuted at the show.

Near West Hall, at floor marker V207, someone turned a split-window Volkswagen Type 2 into a slammed hauler: cab up front, a long wood-slat flatbed behind it riding on tandem rear axles, metallic blue paint and chrome trim tracing the V on the nose. LIQUI MOLY barrels and a pair of fuzzy dice were staged with it.

The off-road rows went just as hard. A tube-chassis rock buggy wearing Brazilian flags and RHINO graphics carried a big-block with 572 Chevrolet valve covers right behind the seats, on copper beadlocks and huge bias-ply tires. Next to the trucks, a black Jeep Wrangler Unlimited with MAXXED graphics and a @bratty.builds window decal showed off a long-travel lift painted hot pink, on chrome wheels. For the full truck rundown, from engraved gold Super Duty wheels to pink coilovers, read Gold Grilles and Pink Coilovers: The Trucks of SEMA 2026.

The Toyo Treadpass

Toyo Tires' Treadpass, the outdoor tent between Central and South Halls, was in its 13th year, and Toyo says it brought 27 world-debut builds. The first car we stopped at was Eccentric's dark green 1995 RX-7 in a Feed GT3 widebody, hood open over a big single turbo and an Eccentric Motorsports engine shroud. According to Toyo, there's a 26B four-rotor under it.

Down the row sat a bare-metal, rust-patina Chevrolet C10, slammed to the ground with a roots-style blower and a tall injector hat punched through the hood. The bed holds a fuel cell and a twin-fan radiator, and the cab has a cage, racing buckets and a Holley EFI dash, all on Toyo white-letter tires.

Then the exotics. S-Klub LA's (@s_klub_la) "Game Over" is a 2024 McLaren 750S rebodied as a Mercedes CLK GTR, the late 1990s race car, on white HRE wheels, and it was one of the most covered builds of the week. Toyo credits the color-shift 1993 Bugatti EB110 next to it to Greg Park, with a one-off widebody designed by Jon Sibal (@jonsibal). Russell Built's (@russellbuiltfab) 964 Safari Sportsman and Bisimoto's (@bisimoto) 2002 Murcielago, which Toyo's build sheet says swaps the V12 for a Civic Type R four cylinder, were in the same tent. We cover a dozen more in Toyo Treadpass 2026: A CLK GTR McLaren, a Type R Powered Murcielago and Eccentric's Widebody FD. The CLK GTR build gets its own story in Game Over: S-Klub LA Rebodied a New McLaren 750S as a Mercedes CLK GTR.

OPTIMA's street cars

The OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car paddock had a different job. These cars are built to be driven hard on track and autocross, then judged on looks, and OPTIMA says the invitational was hatched at the SEMA Show. The standout was David Carroll's yellow and white 1974 K5 Blazer, No. 126, with a twin-turbo 5.3-liter V8 that ChevyHardcore and BangShift put at about 1,000 hp. OPTIMA's results list it 18th at the 2025 invitational.

Most of the paddock was Corvettes, parked in an outdoor lot in front of the food trucks with Ultimate Street Car stickers on the glass: a yellow C6 with a vented hood, a black C7 with a deep splitter, and a red C6 with "After Dark" lettered down the doors. The full lineup is in Built to Be Driven: The OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Lineup at SEMA 2026.

JDM and kei

Two R34s told two different stories outside. One, a purple-to-teal color-shift Skyline wearing a Japanese plate from Okinawa, had its hood up over an RB26 with a big single turbo. It has the non-GT-R body, so we aren't calling it a GT-R. The other, a pearl white R34 sedan with a GT-R style front bumper at the Lionhart Tires display, sat low behind a Stance Society windshield banner, wearing an @ayyepaulyy decal.

Inside, the NRG Innovations (@getnrg) booth had the most Japanese car of the show: a kaido racer in orange metalflake and silver, with bolt-on flares, a long chin spoiler and a tall takeyari exhaust. By its quad lamps and body, it's a C210 "Japan" generation Nissan Skyline. And in the lobby, a Suzuki Twin kei car wore Pandem's (founder Kei Miura, @trakyoto) Rocket Bunny R34 GT-R style body and a yellow and black Hardcore (@hardcoretokyo) race livery. The JDM essay, Pocket Bunnies, Okinawa Plates and a Kaido Racer: JDM at SEMA 2026, has both up close.

Lowriders and kustoms

SEMA put lowriders where nobody could miss them: on a checkered floor at the Central Hall entrance, hoods and doors open. In the concourse, a copper 1956 Bel Air convertible called "Vaselina," a candy blue Impala and an orange flake Caprice showed their trunks, and Martech Corporation's El Loco Murcielago Kustom Batmobile wore chameleon paint and a Batman mural. Murals, Chrome and Juice: Lowriders and Kustoms at SEMA 2026 covers all of them.

The meanest kustom we found was a gloss black late-1950s Chevrolet Task Force pickup at the Dapper Lighting stand, sitting nearly on the floor on bronze multi-spoke wheels, with custom fender vents and red accents. The floor mats name it "Black Widow."

Pot O' Gold Kustoms of Colorado Springs, the shop of Shannon Manley according to Street Trucks, brought the opposite mood: an early 1960s Ford F-100 with the roof cut off, white paint, pink pinstriping, an ice cream cone emblem on the hood and tufted seats with pink buttons. We caught it again after dark.

Exotics and widebodies

Outside West Hall, a ZACOE (@zacoe.performance) "Fusion Runner" Lamborghini Huracan EVO showed off the carbon widebody kit that first appeared at SEMA 2023. Its placard credits MV Forged wheels, Novitec suspension, a Fi EXHAUST system and a Gintani tune.

Inside, a 2022 McLaren 720S GT3X in an orange and black wrap wore a tall carbon rear wing. The placard credits the wrap to Atlanta Custom Wraps, a Woodstock, Georgia, shop that Graphics Pro says turns out more than 450 wraps a year.

Not every widebody was a supercar. Out near the TIS Motorsports tent, a red Jeep Grand Cherokee carried flared fenders, a gloss black spoiler extension, silver mesh wheels and Fineline Performance badging on its plate frame and bumper, parked under the palms.

Hot rods, muscle and pro-touring

The best engine bay we shot all day was in a bare-metal 1987 Camaro by SnakePit Customs (@snakepitcustoms) at the HP Tuners area. The placard lists a Wegner Automotive LSX 427 under a Harrop Hurricane individual throttle body intake, run by an HP Tuners CORE ECU, on a Roadster Shop FastTrack chassis and Forgeline wheels.

The Hot Rod Industry Alliance display outside was a placard reader's dream. A black split-window 1963 Corvette credited to Superior Quality Rides and Restoration of Rochester, Minnesota, lists a tall-deck aluminum LS rated at 698 hp. A ruby red 1965 Mustang fastback from Burnyzz (@burnyzz) of Ocala, Florida, the shop owned by Top Fuel driver Josh Hart according to Hagerty, runs a Gen 3 Coyote on a Roadster Shop chassis. And Houston's Smithy Customs (@smithycustoms) showed a 1955 F-100 that its placard says carries a Whipple-supercharged Coyote and a 10-speed automatic. That truck and Wilco's (@wilcoclassics) supercharged 1984 C10 are in A Twin-Turbo '33 Ford, a C8 Fajita Truck and Seven More SEMA 2026 Builds We Couldn't Walk Past.

SR Motors, a Mexican shop near Monterrey known for retro-future second-generation Camaros, showed a split-bumper car in blue with white stripes, side exhaust exiting ahead of the rear wheels, and brushed concave wheels.

And at the Magnuson Superchargers (@magnusonsuperchargers) display in the concourse, a weathered squarebody C10 made the brand's case the honest way: patina paint, "Proudly Building Boost" lettered on the door, and a blower sitting right out in the open.

Off-road and classic 4x4

Two classic SUVs made the case for restomods with real hardware. In the Toyo tent, Tony Arme's American Legends Hot Rods and Muscle Cars (@alhotrods) brought a 1972 K5 Blazer on a Roadster Shop RS4 chassis with a 650-hp LT4, KMC 20x10 beadlocks and 35-inch Toyo Open Country A/T III tires. At the WD-40 booth, a red Vigilante 4x4 (@vigilante4x4) Grand Wagoneer with woodgrain sides carried the slogan "Yes, it's faster than yours." Vigilante builds Hemi and Hellcat Wagoneers, including an 807-hp Redeye truck Motor Authority covered, though this one's engine wasn't listed.

The flannel trucks were the pair of the show. According to GM Authority, Arizona Custom Car Design built a 1973 K5 Blazer called "Sweet Emotion" and a 1973 C10 called "Chasing Gold" for the husband and wife who own Dixxon Flannel Co. (@dixxonflannelco), the Blazer for her and the C10 for him. The Blazer runs a Gary Ochs Performance LS3 with a Granatelli Zilla intake, and both trucks sit on Roadster Shop chassis with gold trim and Dixxon flannel in the interiors.

EVs and oddballs

Which brings us back to the fajita truck. "Vettro" is LJ Koch's 1950s International Metro van on the chassis and mid-mounted 6.2-liter V8 of a wrecked 2021 C8 Corvette, built for his Luc's Fajita Hut (@lucs). According to The Drive, Koch bought the van for $400 after finding it behind a building in Pine Brook, New Jersey, and Guinness created a new fastest food truck category with a 130-mph threshold. The signage called it an official attempt, and no record has been certified yet. The full story is Vettro: The $400 International Metro Fajita Truck Hiding a Wrecked C8 Corvette.

Two more we can't stop thinking about. In SEMA's Future Tech Studio, the "CyberHooligan" (@cyber_hooligan) display showed a 2023 Tesla Model S Plaid, a car Tesla rates at 1,020 hp, cut into an angular stainless roadster wearing a GTA VI themed livery; its display credits TSK Collision Repair Center (@tsk.club). And on the Absorber (@theabsorberofficial) booth's surf-themed sand floor, a red and white BMW Isetta with a surfboard through the roof wore a plate reading GNARLY.

At the Supertech booth, a white Toyota mini pickup wearing No. 1079 and E/BFMMP class lettering sat with its hood up over an inline six and a big turbo, an AMSOIL livery down the side and "Our Minds Are Always Racing" across the windshield. An SCTA certificate displayed in the bed marks it as a land speed racer.

After dark

SEMA doesn't stop when the sun goes down. After dark on Thursday, the lots outside were still worth walking: a green Lamborghini Aventador SVJ parked at floor marker V132 under the Strip's lights, and a pastel green BMW M2 with a caged interior and a KW banner on the windshield. That was SEMA 2026: a Chevelle on top of the podium, automakers chasing desert hardware, and a few hundred builds you only find if you keep walking.