The Annual SEMA Show is nothing short of an automotive extravaganza. Over 10,000 booths and over 2000 exhibitors; over 2000 vehicles on display, including The Turtle V with its Tortuga Expedition Camper. (Bumper to bumper, that’s about 5.5 miles of some of the most exotic vehicles in the world.) SEMA stands for Specialty Equipment Marketing Association. This is the largest collection of automotive accessories in the World. It is the place to find all the newest & greatest gear you can imagine. Over 100,000 were in attendance this year. This is a Trade Show, so the general public is not allowed in.

This year’s theme was “The American Muscle Car”, and there were plenty of great examples to drool over. As always, much of the emphasis is on trucks, performance, 4X4, and backroad travel. It’s like walking through a candy store; a BIG candy store!!; over one million square feet of space at the Las Vegas Convention Center in five halls with at least ten specific sections.

Regardless of what your ride is; extreme rock crawler, V-8 motorcycle, race cars, Ferrari, Lotus, 4X4 truck, or just a plain hotrod, they were all here, including some which had no real function in the real world.

One of the more interesting vehicles parked just down the Silver Drive from The Turtle V was the all new Unicat, the flagship expedition camper of UnicatAmericas, Inc., a company that hopes to bring the Unicat name to the U.S.

Very typical of the quality we know Unicat of Germany for, the display truck, based on a 2006 International 7400 4X4 with a GVWR of 33,000 lbs. had every bell and whistle you could imagine, including 240 gallons of fuel, 100 gallons of water, an 8000 kW generator, two air conditioners, a full stand-up shower, full bath, and at least as much storage as our house. The bad news is, ---in my humble opinion---, it was made for Africa. With a GVW of 24,000 pounds, and a width of about 8.5 feet, a height of a little over 11 feet without the AC units, and a length of about 31 feet, this beautiful camper could not follow us on our upcoming Baja backroad Adventure. We had dinner with the owner of UnicatAmericas and Unicat of Germany the last evening of the show, and snapped some fun (sorry no tripod) photos in the parking lot just to give a visual comparison.

For all the attention given to Specialty Vehicles, the SEMA Show is more about all the individual products that make them more powerful, reliable, safer and comfortable. Here are a few we found particularly interesting:

As you read this, we may be on our way to Mexico to lead our Baja Backroad Adventure. We have already requested 50 lobsters at the fish camp where we spend a night on the remote Pacific. Wish you could join us.

Regards and happy travels;

Gary & Monika
The Turtle Expedition, Unltd.