Every hot rod builder knows that the “Mac Daddy” venue for debuting their latest-greatest creations is SEMA. In walking around this year’s SEMA Hot Rod Alley, I noticed a curious thing: Of the 80+ hot rod builds on display, nearly 1 out of 3 had a Roadster Shop plaque next to it indicating the builder had used the Roadster Shop chassis in his build.
Combine that with the fact that the Roadster Shop set a record of sorts by having SEVEN of their own SEMA builds at the show this year starting with …..
– the ’69 Camaro “AXIS” that was one of the top ten contenders for Battle of the Builders and won the prestigious GM Design Peoples Choice Award
– 2 split-window Corvette Sting Rays
– 2 Pro Touring Camaros
– Jesse James “Hill Top Hustler”- a bare bones ’64 Polara with a twin turbocharged Hemi
– a ’65 C10 square body sleeper that sports a blown 454 LSX that puts out a mere 1200HP
Can’t get enough of these incredible SEMA Seven builds – neither can we. Check out this video but be prepared to drool!
Click here to peruse a couple hundred more stills of these beauties.
Now you begin to understand why the Gerber family – Patriarch Neal and his two sons, Phil and Jeremy – have over the last decade quietly built the Roadster Shop into a veritable hot rod power house second to none.
But wait …… there’s more! If the widespread success of their chassis prowess combined with the jaw dropping looks and performance of their own builds don’t impress you, how about the fact that Mercury Racing just announced a partnership with the Roadster Shop that designates them as the exclusive distributor for Mercury Racing’s new bad to the bone “game changer” – a 7 Liter DOHC screamer that churns out 750HP@ 8000 RPMs in naturally aspirated form. (By comparison Corvette’s best naturally aspirated LS puts out a meager 505HP.)
And there’s all sorts of speculation that the Roadster Shop/Mercury Racing skunk works already has supercharging and turbocharging on their mind for down the road. Why there’s even a rumor that one of the Roadster Shop’s first builds with this radical cammer will be their own track ready Camaro ready to take on the new factory Camaro ZL 1 that just set the record at the Nurburgring in a winner-take-all road course smack down.
Now given the Roadster Shop’s history of building award winning rides with super car performance, the Rampage for example……
….I’m going to put my money on the Roadster Shop gang winning this “rumored” shoot out hands down. Nothing like a hot rodder showing the factory how to do it right! We’ll keep you posted.
Wanna keep tabs on this trendsetting hot rod shop and what they are up to? Check out their Builders Showroom: it’s updated daily.
Till the next time, keep on Kruzin!