The Best Car Builds We Saw This Year at SEMA 2026
Including a plethora of kei cars, widebodied legends, and even a six-wheeled Ferrari.
This year’s Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show is going on right now, and we were once again witness to some really awesome car builds.
For this year’s SEMA show, we were presented with a conundrum – how do we cover a show that has consistently showcased some of the most incredible cars in the United States? We’ve been going to the Las Vegas tradeshow for five years now and each time we attempt at eyeing specific trends. This year however, while a few patterns were noticed, we went with our gut and captured literally anything that stopped us in our tracks – subjectively objective.
We’re more than familiar with the exotic stuff, but seeing exotics torn apart and rebuilt into widebody monsters transcends the hub bub of restomods and RWB. One of our highlight spots was a Ferrari Testarossa 6×6 – aptly nicknamed the Ferrari F6 – by Gas Monkey Garage that couldn’t have been more of a spectacle if it had just another set of wheels attached. Our friend Greg Park also showed up with a widebody converted Bugatti EB110 courtesy of designer Jon Sibal, alongside a McLaren 750S wearing a custom-fabricated Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR tuxedo created by S Klub LA.
A plethora of Pocketbunny GTR builds made their US debut across the show, giving kei cars with decent power – SR20, Mazda rotary – the spot light they deserve. OEMs also took the opportunity to show off their special projects, like Toyota’s family of tank-tracked pickups and Nissan’s tuner-friendly Sentra Spec V concept car.
Mike Spagnola – CEO of SEMA – confirmed with us just how substantial SEMA continues to be – the automotive aftermarket accounts for $383 billion USD in total annual economic impact and over 1.25 million jobs across America. Community was a byword during our press trip this year, and it shows with its estimated 160,000 tradeshow attendance and growing sectors of motorcycles, powersports, lowriders and more.
SEMA took place between November 3-6 – with the last day being public – but moves on in the form of PRI (Performance Racing Industry, its subsidiary show) from December 10-12 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
