Companies that manufacture and sell automotive specialty equipment are always on the lookout for segment trends. SEMA canvassed several members of the Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council to get their take on what's hot and growing hotter. Here is the quick top ten followed by separate descriptions for each hot market segment:
1. Off-Roading—Particularly Rock Crawling and Sand Sports 2. ’60s to ’80s Street Musclecars 3. Street-Car Racing in the PSCA 4. Diesel 5. Fuel-Efficiency Products 6. Drifting 7. Time Attack 8. Grass-Roots Road Racing from NASA 9. Street Rods 10. Tractor Pulling
1. Off-Roading—Particularly Rock Crawling and Sand Sports
While the overall four-wheel-drive market has seen steady growth for more than four decades, rock crawling and sand sports have exploded in popularity in just the last few years. Motorsports parts manufacturers and retailers have begun to cater to their specific needs. Whether it’s suspension parts, engine parts, transmissions or rearends, everything about rock and sand-sport vehicles must be built differently from those used in other forms of motorsports.
“I just got back from Moab, Utah,” said Dennis Overholser of Painless Performance, “and we were deluged with requests for wiring kits to help transplant engines for rock crawling and trail riding. We were traditionally into street rods for many years, but we do far more four-wheel drive now. When I tell people that we sell more Jeep harnesses than street-rod harnesses, they look at me like I’m nuts, but it’s unbelievable how much four-wheel-drive stuff we sell.”
(Four-wheel-drive recreation has been a steady specialty-equipment market segment for decades, but rock crawling and sand sports have boomed in the last few years. (Photo courtesy of 4-Wheel & Off-Road magazine)
Sand sports have become equally popular, utilizing light vehicles with rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive configurations. “People are using their discretionary income to build some pretty ‘bad’ toys,” said Turbonetics’ Market-ing Manager, Tyler Tanaka. “More often than not, they turn to turbochargers for lighter vehicles that make 400 horsepower. I’ve seen a lot of rotary applications and a lot of sport-compact engines like the flat fours from Subaru and the new Ecotec engine from GM.”
2. ’60s to ’80s Street Musclecars
As the Baby Boom generation continues to build wealth, many are now able to afford to build the cars they would have liked to have owned in high school. Cars such as ’60s Mustangs, Camaros, GTOs and Barracudas as well as ’70s and even early ’80s Chevys, Fords and Mopars are now within their financial reach, and the market is booming.
“The ’60s cars have always been a good market, but the price keeps going up on them,” said Milodon’s Ken Sink. “The ’70s and ’80s cars are a little more plentiful and are a little cheaper than the ’60s cars. Parts for the Pontiac Trans Am and Firebird have been big movers.”
Overholser concurred. “The ’60s and ’70s musclecar stuff is growing at two to three times the rate of the street-rod stuff. There seems to be a transition where a guy who might have built a ’40 Ford a few years ago now will build a ’67 Camaro. In fact, if I were going to build another car, that’s what I would do. That’s what we had in high school, and everybody wants to relive some of the good old days.”
