Was at SEMA for the first 2 days working my companies booth. Agree, wasn't much from lexus and their booth was meh. They were offering laser engraved keychainns using one of our machines so that was cool for me to see. Didn't get a chance to walk around much this year, really wanted to check out some new wheels but didn't have time.

 

yeah i was there as well and very disappointed with the lexus booth this year vs last year

 

To the aftermarket industry SEMA is like the championship finals, so people do care. Countless effort is made by companies to present their best and builders go above and beyond to bring new vehicles to debut.

While you might not see modified Lexus cars, clearly they exist and are growing every year in number. One of the reasons for corporate support from Lexus for SEMA is to show Lexus is involved with the aftermarket and what is available from Lexus and others.

I walked around Friday and there were maybe 20-25 Lexus vehicles including a LFA. Surely not as many as the FRS or Camaro but a good number and some in prominent spots. Mind you most of the vehicles are trucks of some sort…

Honestly I was surprised to see that many Lexus vehicles.

The booth was a ton smaller than last years and in the past they had the outdoor tent and sometimes a track to drive cars which no one else really was doing. This year I think it was GM who did the track and Lexus had a smaller booth.

To be honest we are fortunate Lexus is at SEMA since no other luxury brand has their own booth there. Hopefully there will be a bigger budget for next year.

The feedback will be relayed….

 

I honestly believe that the white IS was one of the worst vehicles I saw from the cars posted online. The design was good but the execution was terrible. The body didn't flow and didn't inspire one to feel like they were looking at the real life version of the design entry sketch . I think it was a shame to bring that thing to SEMA to represent Lexus. I think Vossens IS looked better and was better executed.

 

Are you talking about the white IS with those hideous fenders parked at the Seibon booth?

I got a chance to see this car up close and it was even worse. The rubber around the headlights had overspray everywhere ~ an obvious rush job. I've been going to SEMA for 6 years now and I realize the need to go over the top but when you put a car up on a pedestal, people are going to look at it closely.

If I owned Seibon, I would be embarassed to have that car in my booth.

Right across the hall was the Accu Air booth and they had a super clean dumped Audi on air suspension. It's not my thing but at least the car was mint.

SEMA is about putting the best cars in the world on display and Lexus did not have it's A_game face for sure.

There were some bad *** trucks, some really cool vintage cars and exotics are always nice.

The cars that STOLE the crowd at the end of the day were vintage muscle cars. Crowd approval was loud and people loved some of the amazing builds. For those who did not come to the show you really missed out.

I know this is a Lexus forum but NO ONE even cared or turned an eye to a M6 GT or the loud M3/M5. Imports in general had a weak showing. Kia, Hyundai, Scions are all kids play toys ~ most of the big money was in vintage old school muscle cars. I could not believe the money that was dumped into some of those restoration projects!

 

that sadly is the bottom line on this topic. a wheel company going harder than a MUCH bigger company/brand and doing it much better. i see what lexus was going for but keep it simple in the future perhaps and not waste all your funds for some rushed, overboard build

 

We worked with Audi for their S7 and a custom set of wheels…great looking car and location…



To me it seemed the show was all talking about the "Liberty Walk" cars, the 458 in the Nitto booth seemed to be the high point. I thought they were stunning and the cars were always packed when I saw them.



I got to meet the founder and chatted through a translator. Really nice guy. Then I got lucky when it seems we drove near one another for the SEMA Cruise and the entire Liberty Walk crew parked nearby and everyone went to see their cars parked together. Something I'll never forget.:thumb up:

 

yeah, pretty embarrassing really. lexus, you can definitely do better.

 

Agreed, the Nitto 458 was the highlight for me. All the other builds were either half-a$$ or too "common" maybe I'm just jaded. A lot of cars there were the same from previous year.

Although I'm not a truck fan, there were some wicked crazy truck builders. I met a few from the east coast who flew out their client's ride just to be a witness at the event. This show is definitely the "championship" event for car tuners to show off what they can do.

I have a short video clip of the Ferrari during the cruise so I'll post it if people want to see it in action. The owner was quite liberal in revving it like a mad man. Hearing the cars as they hit the main road and punching it was worth the trip by itself.

This is the first SEMA event I actually spent more time in the casino than at the show

 

The yellow IS was featured by Eagle One in Import Tuner's June issue




The 2JZ equipped IS just finished the American leg of the Gumball.....