Restomods From SEMA You Can't Afford to Miss

The 2014 SEMA Show packed up and left Las Vegas last night, but there’s still plenty to look at.

Classic muscle is spectacular. The trouble is that owning decades-old American performance machine isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be. Old muscle cars drive like trucks, classic Vettes in factory spec aren’t great at turning or stopping and the truth is that modern engines are much, much better for daily use.

2014 SEMA Show Preview Page

So what’s a well-off car buff with a penchant for performance and a pang of nostalgia to do? In a word, restomod. The idea is simple even if the project executions can be complex and expensive.

The orange Mustang you see here is a particularly exciting product that was on display at this year’s SEMA Show. Oklahoma-based Classic Recreations built it based on a 1968 Mustang, but the body panels are all made of a composite material and Ford’s 5.0-liter Coyote V8 sends power through a Trememc TR56 six-speed manual transmission.

Alternatively, you could pick something like the thoroughly modernized C2 Corvette by Lingenfelter Performance Engineering. The car features a custom-built powertrain including a version of Chevrolet’s 7.0-liter LS7 V8 that also powered the C6 Z06. In this case it makes 660 hp and 585 lb-ft of torque.

This 1967 Mustang is another one of the more exciting hybrids between old and new American performance that graced SEMA this year. It has a revised suspension, a custom engineered chassis and a supercharged 4.6-liter Ford Racing Cobra V8 mated to a Tremec T56 Magnum transmission.

But those are only three out of a long list of re-imagined muscle that sat this week in Las Vegas. You can see all of them in the gallery below.