SEMA News

The Hot Rod Power Tour is nearing its 20th birthday (this year’s running in June swings from Texas to North Carolina), but the roots of long-distance hot-rod hauling go back much further than that.

Thinking of trying to sell your product overseas but not sure where to start? Say you make a Jeep accessory that is a hot seller here in the United States and you want to know where else the Jeep is popular. SEMA can help. It has sales data for Jeep in more than two dozen countries. The same data is available for trucks and select car models.

Let’s say you’ve launched a start-up company and are ready to sell your first line (or lines) of new product. Or perhaps you are a small to medium manufacturer looking to take sales to a whole new level. Or maybe you head the marketing department of a company in need of growing its sales force. In each case, you’re likely considering the ability of a manufacturer’s rep to help you reach your goals. If so, you won’t be the first who employed the services of an expert to gain entry to key markets and increase sales of established lines.

It’s December 1967, and the men about to fire that Chevy small-block on the engine dyno are Jim Travers (right) and Frank Coon, founders of Traco Engineering. Commanding their attention is a Trans-Am race engine—possibly destined for one of Roger Penske’s Sunoco Z/28 Camaros—and Car Craft magazine’s Bob Swaim is chronicling “Traco’s magic touch” to see how the legendary engine builders squeeze more than 400 hp from “a basically stock 301ci engine with the Z/28 options.”

SEMA members create products for vehicles that are sold globally, and a growing number are looking to overseas markets for new business opportunities. OMIX-ADA, headquartered in Suwanee, Georgia, has more than 15,000 Jeep parts and accessories in stock and has been selling them globally for years, but the company expanded its international business department a few years. Now, OMIX-ADA’s international business is growing faster.

Regularly making chump meat of the most sophisticated of computer defenses, hackers will be unleashing a new wave of malware in the coming year on the unsuspecting—many of whom will be completely unprepared, according to Sophos, a computer-security firm.

For the second consecutive year, SEMA News is looking to highlight top-tier talent in the automotive aftermarket industry who are under the age of 35.

For the second consecutive year, SEMA News is looking to highlight top-tier talent in the automotive aftermarket industry who are under the age of 35.

For the second consecutive year, SEMA News is looking to highlight top-tier talent in the automotive aftermarket industry who are under the age of 35.

For the second consecutive year, SEMA News is looking to highlight top-tier talent in the automotive aftermarket industry who are under the age of 35.