SEMA Pasadena: Public Show in SoCal raises money for charity

Though we weren't at the very first SEMA show 42 years ago at the National Guard Armory in Los Angeles, the inaugural SEMA Cares Show and Shine last weekend must have been a lot like that first show four decades ago.

SEMA Cares was held in the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California. Organizers sold out all 155 spots for cool cars and all 25 booth spaces for vendors. But it was this show's smaller-scale relaxed ambiance that stood in stark contrast to the weeklong madness of the SEMA show held 400 miles east in Las Vegas every November.

And, unlike the Las Vegas version, the Pasadena show was open to the public. For years, critics and supporters both have said that the Las Vegas SEMA show should be open to the public at least one day out of its very hectic week. Maybe something like the Pasadena show will be the perfect place for nonindustry car lovers to get parts, products and perspective all under one roof.

“Next year we need more space,” Peter MacGillivray, SEMA's vice president of sales, marketing and communications, said of the Pasadena venue. “The hope is turning it into something where tens of thousands of spectators can come.”

This year, they ran out of $5 wristbands after selling all 1,000 of the ones they brought. An estimated 500 or so attendees got in as various industry insiders.

In the convention center's Exhibit Halls A and B were cars from Roy Brizio, Chip Foose and West Coast Customs, as well as two solid rows of blinged-out Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis and one forlorn-looking Smart car from SEMA mega-presence Giovanna Wheels.

The whole event raised funds for two children's charities, Childhelp and Victory Junction Gang Camp. Also helping the charities was SEMA's second annual Pinewood Derby Drag Race, held on a slick aluminum track set up outside the convention center. About 250 cars competed in three different categories.

Alongside the Pinewood Derby was another fundraiser, several long tables lined up with rows of pinewood derby cars painted by kids from the two charities. Each car was crafted to match a particular driver. Each driver signed his or her car. The names were pretty exhaustive, from Danica Patrick and Tony Stewart to Tiger Tom Pistone and Marvin Panch.

“It's easier to say who's not here,” said pinewood organizer Eric Saltrick of Steel Rubber Products in Denver, N.C.

On the evening of the car show, SEMA held its annual installation banquet and gala fundraiser, which pays tribute to Hall of Fame inductees as well as old and new SEMA board members.

Charity proceeds from the whole day totaled $75,000.

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Hydrogen Scorpion Car

A Texas startup has finally pulled the wraps off its 40-mpg, 450-horsepower Scorpion roadster, a hand-built hydrogen-burning "eco-exotic" that is sexier than Angelina Jolie and has the performance to provide more grins than nitrous oxide.


Ronn Motor Company unveiled the Scorpion today at the big SEMA, or Speciality Equipment Market Association, automotive trade show in Las Vegas, which may be the perfect place to debut so flashy — and innovative — a car. The company hopes the Scorpion does for hydrogen what the Tesla Roadster has done for batteries.


"We want to build cool cars, just more responsibly”, company president Ronn Maxwell told Wired.com. "Our hope with the Scorpion is to implement a paradigm shift not only in how the industry looks at supercars but at cars in general."


The Scorpion gets its sting from a hydrogen delivery system the company calls H2GO. While cars like the Honda FCX Clarity and Chevrolet Equinox use hydrogen fuel cells to drive electric motors, the Scorpion uses electrolysis to convert water into gaseous hydrogen. The hydrogen is mixed with 91-octane gasoline to improve the fuel economy and reduce the emissions of the car's 3.5-liter internal combustion engine.



Maxwell, a 40-year auto industry vet and lifelong gearhead who holds several patents, is using the limited production — just 200 will be built — Scorpion to prove the technology works and legitimize the H2GO system the company will begin selling for $1,000 early next year. The way he sees it, if H2GO works on the Scorpion, it'll work on your Civic.


Maxwell didn't offer much in the way of specifics, saying the publicly traded company is still dotting the i's and crossing the t's on the venture. But he says H2GO is good for a 15 percent to 33 percent improvement in mileage, a noticeable increase in power and a significant reduction in overall emissions. The company is pursuing EPA certification of the Scorpion so people can get a better idea of what the system is capable of. Maxwell insists the 40-mpg figure is the real deal.


Photos courtesy Ronn Motor Co.

The trucking industry has been using hydrogen boosting for years. But the Scorpion is significant because it uses what the company calls real-time hydrogen delivery as part of an original factory design. And unlike BMW’s Hydrogen 7, Scorpion does not keep any 30-gallon tanks full of liquid hydrogen lying around at −253 °C (−423.4 °F).

“Our system does not require any pressurized hydrogen storage. It’s completely safe and uses water from your garden hose to create hydrogen on demand. We are simply increasing the efficiency of what’s already there”, says company COO Damon Kuhn. “Even better, the infrastructure to support this technology is here right now, not 10 years from now.”

Kuhn is referring to the biggest challenges to hydrogen's use in vehicles — the need for a fueling infrastructure, a venture that by any measure will take many years and many millions of dollars.

Ronn Motors is confident that the sexy Scorpion will top 200 mph. The chrome-moly chassis and carbon-fiber body surrounds a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 in a car that weighs just 2,200 pounds. The engine was sourced from Acura — it's the same mill found in the TL Type S, albeit turbocharged — and mated to a six-speed gearbox. The car will set you back $150,000, and if 450 ponies isn't enough, another $100 grand will get you a tweaked version with another 150 horsepower.

Tom duPont, publisher of the duPont registry, pulled the sheet off the Scorpion this morning and said, “If it was a square box with a bunch of batteries, I wouldn’t be getting pre-orders from NBA basketball players. The exotic styling and amazing performance mixed in with the environmental angle is really inspiring a lot of attention.”

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