Our 25 Favorite Cars from Central Hall at SEMA 2024

After a day in SEMA's Central Hall, here are our favorite cars, trucks, and maybe even an SUV. Tomorrow there may be more. Favoritism can be fickle.

Factory Five Type 65 Coupe

Factory Five Racing was founded in 1995 in a small garage. Now it says it's the world's largest manufacturer of "build-it-yourself" component car kits. Its staff of 40 in Wareham, Massachusetts, makes kits you build yourself.

This one has a 460-hp Gen 3 Ford Coyote engine, weighs 2,350 pounds, and costs $22,990. It was built by the staff at a small and little-known car magazine.

Factory Five Racing Speedstar

This Ford roadster lookalike has a 392 Hemi, but Factory Five points out that you can also use a Ford small block, 5.0 Coyote, or Chevy small block or LS engines. What is stopping you?

EMPI Inch Pincher

EMPI got its start in 1954 when a guy named Joe Vittone started a Volkswagen dealership. He noticed some flaws in the stock VW engine and started making valve guides and other parts for it. Soon he founded EMPI to make and sell his parts. The letters stand for Engineered Motor Products Inc. Much racing ensued, led by a 1958 Bug called the Inch Pincher. This car is a tribute to that original.

EMPI VW Double Cab Dealer Support Vehicle

Another Volkswagen on the EMPI stand at SEMA was this 1968 VW DoubleCab, officially the EMPI Dealer Support Vehicle. It's powered by a 1,600-cc air-cooled flat four and is loaded with EMPI parts. Among those are: EMPI 1914 long block by Jack Sacchette, BRM-style wheels, disc brake kit, trigger shifter and a whole bunch more. Makes you wish you were 16 again but had some money this time.

Superformance Shelby Cobra 289 FIA CSX7000

Superformance is a South African company that makes continuation Cobras, among other cars. This particular car is modeled after the race version of the 1962 Cobra. The CSX7000 means it's a "continuation Cobra," made as close as possible to the race car of the 1960s. If you buy one of these it comes without the engine and transmission. "The selection, purchase and installation of the drivetrain are the responsibility of the purchaser," according to Shelby Legendary Cars. Shelby American Inc. is just down the highway in Las Vegas or, farther down the highway is Hillbank Motors in Irvine, California, where you can buy one of your own.

1972 Toyota Celica and 1971 Datsun 240Z

ENEOS is Japan's largest oil company, they say, and they had a booth at SEMA. Check out these two classic cars.

The first-gen Celica belongs to veteran racer, Formula DRIFT team owner and hero of the Import Scene Steph Papadakis. The barn find-turned-showpiece is Steph’s personal project, which he rebuilt during the Formula D off-season. It's powered by an 18R-G four-cylinder, eight-valve, twin-cam engine that was fully rebuilt and bored to 2.2 liters. It makes 170 hp near its 8,000-rpm redline.

The Z behind it is John Lau's "Devil Z" that was inspired by the anime manga series Wangan Midnight. The project is a collaboration between Lau and designer Jon Sibal. Originally a 240Z, it's now powered by a 280ZX L28 bored to L30 with forged 87mm flat-top pistons, forged H-beam connecting rods, and a ported and polished P90 head. It sports a Garrett G35-900 turbo mounted on a Protuner ZTurbo manifold and downpipe, which forces air into a fabricated intake plenum with 47mm velocity stacks. Everything is controlled by a Haltech 2500 ECU programmed for E85 and providing traction control.

Their engine oil? ENEOS, of course!

1967 Chevrolet C10

Jeremy Rice's 1967 C10 is lowered to the ground in the Precision Weatherstripping booth of the Central Hall.

Truck With Patina

Bous Performance offers a wide variety of parts for hot rod and muscle cars including, presumably, the air bag suspension that helps this work truck lay so low on the ground of the Central Hall.

Salt Work Solutions' Car Model

This isn't full size, though wouldn't it be cool if it was? This 1/10th model was made by Salt Works 3D Solutions, a company that offers what it calls a revolutionary metal forming service. Their pioneering approach harnesses the power of digitization to form just about any shape you want out of metal. They should use that ability to build one of these green cars.

Hakosuka Skyline

We first saw this car at the Japanese Classic Car Show, a few years and also a few weeks before SEMA. At Long Beach, California, a few weeks ago it was sitting in the Motul booth. The Hakosuka Skyline is the Gullwing Mercedes of Japanese cars, the Type 35, the GTO—just to see one is a joy. This one is tastefully and purposefully modified to award-winning trim.

Chevy C10

1964 Chevrolet Impala

1964 Chevrolet Impala

The interior lighting on this car would make BMW whimper, at least a little. The way the color of the lighting so perfectly matches the shade of the interior is a tribute to light and fabric.

Ford Boss 429 Mustang

The Boss 429 was only offered for two years, 1969-1970, largely just so Ford could use the big 7.0-liter V8 in NASCAR, where it had to outperform the Chrysler 426 Hemi.

Ford Boss 429 Mustang

It looks just as good from either angle.

1966 Mustang Fastback

This car actually started life as a coupe, but owner Chris Sloan wanted a Fastback. It was a 13-year process from the time he found the car in a field with a rusted hood and grass growing all around it to when it parked on the grounds of the SEMA show, just outside the Central Hall.

"My son and I bought it to restore it," Sloan said. "But then he went off to college. I was in the Army and we moved a lot, and I just wound up handing it over to Steve."

That's Steve Mank of Conestogo Motors in Claremore, Oklahoma. Mank sourced a 302 block, bored and stroked it to 347 cubic inches and installed a six-speed manual. The interior work (can't find the name of the guy who did it) was superb, with a blue so blue it almost looks purple.

It's a superb build that really catches your eye. Congratulations to all concerned.

Ford F-250 Ranger

Dodge Ram Pickup

Ring Brothers 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda

The Ring Brothers are SEMA celebrities, with eyeball-popping builds that attract crowds on the show floor. They had three cars in the Central Hall and this one may have been the best. It's called, "Infected." That may seem kind of a weird name but there's a reason.

It has a Hellcrate RedEye supercharged Hemi V8 making 800 hp under that carbon-fiber hood, but the car was going to be painted pink, so they called the engine the Pink Eye. That didn't sound right to them so they called the car Infected, which, well, who are we to argue with that logic? The wheelbase is stretched an inch and a half to accommodate the big engine, but the length of the car remains unchanged.

1970 Dodge Charger

Blazin Rodz made this all-carbon fiber 1970 Dodge Charger and named it Sangria after its dark red color.

Powered by a 1,500-hp Hellephant engine, it rides on a Roadster Shop chassis with a fully carbon-fiber body and a House of Kolors paint job.

Like it? It's for sale at Hemmings.com, where the listed price is $895,000.

Troy Indy Special

7fifteeen Motorworks in Three Lakes, Wisconsin, makes these very fun-looking roadsters. The cars harken back to 1959 when Jaguar dealer Wally Troy started building them with a custom tube chassis with aluminum bodywork and a Chevrolet 283 ci V8 with dual carburetors.

"Inspired by Troy's original roadster, the Troy Indy Special takes the design to new heights with a modern tubular chassis and inboard coilover suspension for improved performance and driver comfort," reads the company website. "Add in the proven performance and reliability of Chevrolet's LS3 engine, and you've got contemporary sports car drivability in the footprint of a classic Indy racer."

The modern Troy Roadster has stretch-formed aluminum bodywork and gets 430 hp from the LS3 engine—that's in a car that weighs just 2,200 pounds. Price is $195,000 and they say you can register it!

Datsun 240Z

Tinker is a new app that helps DIYers work on cars by setting them up with live help and let's them ask questions about their builds. To promote the app, Tinker put this wrap on the 240Z of built.by.rich. Looks cool, don't you think?

Datsun 240Z

...from both angles...

1964 Chevrolet Impala

Andrew De Alba's 1964 Impala is called Redrum, after the color, perhaps, and after the word the kid keeps saying in The Shining. This was actually in the North Hall, but it was on the South end of that building, so it goes into our Central Hall collection. The car was sitting right near the entrance to the hall, and many showgoers stopped in their tracks when they saw it. What a work of art.

Lincoln Continental

The fourth-gen Continental is really taking off. Even the hard tops are going for over 30 grand, and the convertibles are well into the six figures. Ya shoulda bought yours back in the '90s.

The understated styling was a direct result of the disastrous Gen three Conti. Gen 4 ran from 1961 to 1969, with the subdued lines you see celebrated here. Lovely example.