Three new vehicles and one new Hybrid vehicle were recipients of the 2007 SEMA Vehicle Design Awards announced today at the SEMA Show. The awards honor the most accessory-friendly vehicles of the year in four separate categories: Car, Truck, SUV and Hybrid. The Nissan Titan took top honors in the Truck category, the Cadillac CTS won in the Car category and the Hummer H2 won in the SUV category. The newest award for the most accessory-friendly Hybrid vehicle went to the Chevrolet Tahoe.

 
Most Accessory-Friendly Truck - Nissan Titan

Each SEMA Vehicle Design Award recipient was part of a selection process that encompassed SEMA member companies and automakers who regularly participate in technology sharing programs. These programs consist of various data sharing, measurement sessions and technology transfer initiatives which provide valuable information for each specialty equipment manufacturer to be in sync with the launch of new vehicles.

Most Accessory-Friendly Car - Cadillac CTS

The SEMA Vehicle Design Awards were established to honor those newly introduced vehicles that best exemplify the alliance between the OEMs and SEMA-member companies. The awards recognize and celebrate the vehicles that a select group of voting members has chosen as the most accessory-friendly vehicles of the year.

 
Most Accessory-Friendly SUV - Hummer H2

"The SEMA Design Awards are becoming more exciting every year with the growing number of accessory-friendly vehicles and options now available for consumers,” said John Waraniak, SEMA VP of Vehicle Technology. "These vehicles are great examples of how automakers and SEMA members are working together to design for customization and engineer for accessorization.”

 
Most Accessory-Friendly Hybrid - Chevrolet Tahoe

For more information on SEMA OEM initiatives, visit www.sema.org/oem.

Below are the Ford and General Motors Design Award winners from the 2007 SEMA Show.

Ford

Ford Design Awards - Awarded for Outstanding Achievement in Design
Best of Show: DeBerti Designs, F-450
Best of Ford Show Stand: CDC, 1967 Mustang
Best Heritage Vehicle: Lakeside Rods & Rides/Doug Hoppe, 1935 Ford Coupe

Special Achievement
3dCarbon, Focus
Fabtech, F-350
Focus Sport, Focus
Galpin Auto Sport, F-450
Mob Steel, 1968 Lincoln Continental
MRT, MKZ
Steeda, Focus
Street Scene Equipment, F-350
X-treme Toyz, F-450
 
Outstanding Project Vehicle Development and Execution
Mickey Thompson, F-250
RK Sport, Focus
Skyjacker, F-250
Street Concept, Expedition
Turbonetics, Mustang

General Motors

The following General Motors Design Awards were presented at the 2007 SEMA Show. GM congratulates these award winners for their innovation, creativity and contributions to the specialty-equipment industry.

Best GM Vehicle
Builder: American Supercars (Phil Sommers)
Vehicle/Part: ’63 Mid-Engine Corvette

Best GM Compact Car 
Builder: GM Addiction (Donna Eschrich and  Kenneth Hynes)        
Vehicle/Part: ’07 Chevrolet Cobalt

Best GM Roadster    
Builder: T.Das Integrated Devel (Tajai Das & Associates)
Vehicle/Part: ’07 Saturn Sky

Best GM Restored Vehicle        
Builder: Original Parts Group (James Ferguson)
Vehicle/Part: ’66 Chevelle

Best GM Hot Rod    
Builder: Mike Hess           
Vehicle/Part: ’37 Chevrolet Coupe

Best GM SUV     
Builder: RD Kustoms (Rick Dore)
Vehicle/Part: ’07 Chevrolet HHR

Best GM Crossover    
Builder: Innovative Automotive  (Jason Plotke)  
Vehicle/Part:  ’08 GMC Acadia

Best New GM Interior   
Builder: Callaway Cars (Steve & Reeves Callaway)
Vehicle Part: ’07 C6 Corvette

Best New GM Exterior   
Builder: Bonspeed Design (Brad Fanshaw)  
Vehicle/Part: ’07 GMC Sierra

Best New Product    
Builder: Street Scene Equipment (Mike Spagnola)
Vehicle/Part: ’07 GMC Sierra

Best High Performance  Product   
Builder: Melling Performance (Mike Osterhaus)
Vehicle/Part: Billet Oil Pump

Most Innovative Product         
Builder: Stainless Steel Brakes (Mike Jonas)          
Vehicle/Part: Combo Master Cylinder/Prop Valve

Best New Accessory   
Builder: Abear Motorsports (Richard Harbert)     
Vehicle/Part: Enclosed Coil/Rocker Arm Cover

For more information on SEMA OEM initiatives, visit www.sema.org/oem.

As a part of its partnership with the 2007 SEMA Show, Hot Wheels awarded four customized vehicles with the Hot Wheels Design Award, recognizing vehicles that embodied the essence of the Hot Wheels, including speed, power, performance and attitude.

Hot Wheels also presented the Best Custom Car and Best Custom Truck awards, both new to the Show, at the annual New Products breakfast. 

Winners of the awards included:

SEMA Best Custom Car: Mike Terzich’s '67 Mustang (Copperback) in the BASF booth

SEMA Best Custom Truck: early 60’s Chevy pickup in the Envision Wheels booth

Hot Wheels Speed Award: The Speed Demon Bonneville Race Car (Poteet and Main)

Hot Wheels Power Award: '70 Cheville in the Bassani Exhaust booth

Hot Wheels Performance Award: 350Z Roadster Drift car in the Nissan booth. (driven by R. Unser)

Hot Wheels Attitude Award: '37 Ford R-Window in the Weld Racing/Wheels booth

Hot Wheels Designer's Choice Award: Chrysler SR392 Roadster in Mopar booth

The Performance Warehouse Association presented its awards for Person of the Year and Manufacturer of the Year awards during the Industry Awards Banquet at the 2007 SEMA Show.

 PWA Person of the Year - Dan Gresham

Dan Gresham

Daniel R. Gresham is an operating executive with more than 30 years of management and investing experience. He earned a BA in economics from Davidson College in 1968 and served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, including a tour in Vietnam.  He then obtained his MBA from Tulane University in 1973.

After leaving graduate school Dan joined Allied Signal where he worked as a financial analyst for two years.  From there he moved to Continental Can Co. where he served in a variety of staff and operating positions.  In his final assignment at Continental Can he was President of the General Packaging Division and had P&L responsibility for a $200 million packaging business with 1,100 employees and 13 plants. 

In 1987 Dan and the previous Chairman of Continental formed a leveraged buyout firm, New Canaan Investments, and made a series of investments both in the United States and Europe.  In 1996, Dan and his partners at NCI joined with Fremont Partners in the acquisition of Kerr Group, Inc., a publicly-traded specialty plastic closure company. 

Following his work on Kerr with Fremont in 1996, Dan and his partners purchased Dynojet Research, Inc., where he assumed the role of CEO.  Dynojet has a large presence in the motorcycle aftermarket parts industry as well as the automotive aftermarket as a developer of diagnostic performance testing equipment. 

In 2000, Dynojet was sold and Dan retired to his home on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.  In early 2004 he failed retirement and reentered the performance world. He and his new partners purchased MSD Ignition where he currently serves as CEO.
Dan has been married to Judy for 39 years and they have a son who is an F18 pilot in the Navy.

PWA Manufacturer of the Year - MSD Ignition

Like many companies in the performance aftermarket, MSD Ignition was started in a garage by a man who needed a better ignition.  Today, MSD is the leader in performance ignition technology and is used on the fastest and quickest engines in everything from NASCAR to powersports and top fuel dragsters.

MSD Ignition now encompasses over 125,000 square feet of manufacturing and developing space in El Paso, Texas.  The company employs over 400 employees including an excellent core of highly trained engineers, technicians, assembly specialists and a host of performance enthusiasts.  Together this group designs, develops, tests and manufactures a diverse line of performance electronic components ranging from ignitions and magnetos to alternators and fuel injection.  MSD products have revolutionized performance and racing ignitions in virtually every form of motorsports!

For more information on PWA, visit www.pwa-par.org

Keystone Automotive Operations was named SEMA Warehouse Distributor (WD) of the Year. The award, presented annually at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, recognizes the accomplishments and contributions of one WD each year.

Opening its doors in 1971, Keystone Automotive Operations was originally established as a small, family-owned parts distributor in northeastern Pennsylvania. Five-time NHRA Drag Racing Series Top Fuel Champion Joe Amato, along with his partners, founded Keystone Automotive Warehouse as a company run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. Today, as a result of a successful growth strategy and investments in key areas of the company, Keystone Automotive Operations now serves over 18,000 wholesale customers, with next-day delivery to 41 states and Canada.

The company has been a SEMA member since 1975.

Keystone Automotive Operations distributes more than a quarter of a million accessories and performance parts representing over 700 product lines, from an 800,000 square-foot facility located in northeastern Pennsylvania. Operating from 24 locations across North America, Keystone is known for providing world-class, personalized service to its customer and supplier partners.

To see photos of award winners, new products and feature vehicles from the 2007 SEMA Show, please visit www.semaphotos.com.

For the fifth time in 28 years, SEMA presented Bob Cook Sales with the SEMA Manufacturers' Rep of the Year Award.

Accepting the award in honor of Bob Cook, company founder who was unable to attend due to injury from a fall, were John Clark, Jeff Bates, Les Rudd, Bruce Harwell, Don Saenz, Chuck Schwam, Mike Oldham, Alex Walker, Troy Hudson, Eddie Hamilton and Mike Katz.

The team of Bob Cook Sales

The company was founded by Bob Cook in 1979 to provide superior representation for manufacturers in the automotive aftermarket. Through a quality mix of performance and accessory products, Bob Cook Sales covers the mass retail, farm stores, fleet accounts, imports, restoration, speed & performance, expediters, export, accessory boutiques, race teams, NASCAR teams, traditional warehouse and jobbers, performance distributors and jobbers, and street rod markets.

Cook was on the SEMA Board of Directors from 1987 to 1993, serving three consecutive two-year terms. He has chaired the WD of the Year Committee, Rep Committee, Dues Review Committee and also served on the Long Range Planning Committee, New Products Judging Committee and Person of the Year Committee.

For more on SEMA's manufacturer's rep programs, please visit www.sema.org/mrc.

More than 2,000 journalists from throughout the world converged in Las Vegas last week for the premier automotive accessories trade event, better known as the SEMA Show. While many of the media outlets are putting the final touches on their stories, here’s a small sampling of some of the coverage that has already resulted:

Automotive News: http://autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071105/ANA03/711050329

Autobytel.com: http://community.myride.com/kickapps/service/searchEverything.kickAction?keywords=%22sema+2007%22&includeVideo=on&includePhoto=on&includeBlog=on&as=3898

AutoWeek: http://www.autoweek.com/

NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/automobiles/04SPIN.html http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/11/02/automobiles/1104-SEMA_index.html

NY Times: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/pimp-your-ride-drain-your-checkbook/

Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007710290334

Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071031/AUTO04/710310351/1364/AUTO01

Discovery News: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/11/01/automobiles-green.html

USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-10-31-toyota-corolla_N.htm?csp=34

Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota1nov01,1,2401844.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Edmunds.com: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/autoshows/sema/2007/index.html?tid=edmunds.h..topfeatures.sema.0.*

MSN Autos: http://autoshow.autos.msn.com/autoshow/SEMA2007/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=5668940

For press releases and media resources, visit www.sema.org/media or www.semashow.com/media.

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Filler for eNews

Not far from Honda’s U.S. corporate headquarters, Brenda Priddy & Co. spy shooter Chris Doane nabbed these shots of the next-generation Acura TSX. Assuming a more aggressive look somewhere between the new Accord and current TL, the TSX also takes some design cues from the SPORTS 4 concept car shown at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show.

An improved 2.4-liter four-cylinder motor will power the base model with an expected 20-30 horsepower bump. The front-drive entry-level model will sport either a six-speed manual or five-speed auto.

A hotter Type-S model should also appear with around 260hp, coming from an up-tuned version of the 2.3-liter (240 hp) turbocharged motor currently found in the Acura RDX. The sportier model will feature a six-speed auto/manual DSG gearbox, and is expected to feature Honda's Super Handling All Wheel Drive system.

While this vehicle will be sold as the Acura TSX in the United States, this same car, with just a few minor styling adjustments, will also sell in European markets as the new Honda Accord. With the 2008 Honda Accord getting a diesel motor, it’s possible we could see a diesel TSX as well. The TSX should enter production towards the end of 2008.