7 Sickest SEMA 2026 Builds You Missed
SEMA Show is where builders get to throw the rulebook out the window, and the 2026 show had some genuinely wild creations. Think classic muscle cars with modern supercar hardware, a vintage pickup wearing a carbon-fiber body and some wonderfully unusual engine swaps. There’s a 1,000-hp Shelby, a Ford Maverick hiding a twin-turbo V8 and even a ’65 Falcon running a supercharged Taurus SHO V6. From outrageous fabrication projects to machines that look like they escaped an engineer’s fever dream, these seven builds deserve a much closer look.
7
Shelby GT500CR By Classic Recreations
Classic Recreations brought a rather special Shelby Mustang to SEMA, combining the familiar shape of a 1967 GT500 with some thoroughly modern hardware. The GT500CR swaps the steel body for carbon fiber, and under the hood sits a Wegner-built Gen 4X Coyote V8 wearing a Whipple 3.0-liter supercharger. Classic Recreations rates the combination at 1,000 horsepower. To keep the shape honest, the team blue-light scanned a steel GT500CR and rebuilt every surface in CAD. A Suncoast ten-speed automatic, Nitron electronic suspension and Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes handle the rest.
6
1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 By Classic Recreations
Classic Recreations also brought a one-off 1969 Boss 429 commissioned by six-time Classic Physique Olympia champion Chris Bumstead. The original Boss 429 was famous for its enormous NASCAR-bred engine, but this one goes a different route with Ford Performance’s 7.3-liter Megazilla V8. A Whipple supercharger and a Suncoast ten-speed automatic join a Detroit Speed chassis, JRI shocks and Wilwood brakes. There’s something wonderfully excessive about stuffing Ford’s modern pushrod V8 into one of its most famous muscle cars. The original was already an engineering oddball, since Ford had to send partially built Mustangs to Kar Kraft just to make its engine fit. This feels like a fitting way to keep the madness going.
5
1965 Pontiac GTO “Billie” By Ringbrothers
Funny enough, Ringbrothers’ Billie started life as a 1965 Pontiac Tempest convertible rather than a factory GTO. That’s oddly appropriate, since the GTO was still an option package on the Tempest LeMans in 1965. The team turned it into a GTO tribute, widening the body by five inches and adding carbon-fiber doors and a carbon hood. Under that hood sits a supercharged 6.2-liter Chevrolet LT4 V8 making 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque, backed by a ten-speed automatic and a Roadster Shop chassis. All told, Ringbrothers spent more than 5,500 hours on it. Billie was commissioned as a tribute to the client’s mother and her old GTO. That’s a pretty special way to honor a family memory, especially with this much horsepower involved.
4
1956 Ford F-100 GT/FX By Fat Fender Garage
Fat Fender Garage set out to give a 1956 Ford F-100 the attitude of a Ford GT. The hand-fabricated steel body gets widened fenders, a pancaked roof and hood, a cab sectioned by two inches and a rear diffuser borrowed from the Mustang GT350. Power comes from a Whipple-supercharged 5.0-liter Coyote V8 producing 800 horsepower and 750 lb-ft of torque. A 10R80 ten-speed automatic handles shifting, while Fat Fender’s own coilover chassis keeps everything in check. The build took more than 15,000 hours. The finished F-100 looks like something Ford might have built if its engineers had been given a considerably larger budget and fewer restrictions.
3
1968 Ford F-100 4×4 “Tricky” By Trick Rides
Trick Rides apparently decided that ordinary sheet metal was far too conventional for its 1968 Ford F-100. Instead, the Oklahoma shop recreated the pickup’s entire body in carbon fiber, then laid Blue Candy paint over the exposed weave so it looks more hypercar than work truck. Under the carbon hood, a Whipple-supercharged 5.0-liter Coyote V8 makes around 750 horsepower at the flywheel, by Trick Rides’ own estimate. A Tremec T-56 Magnum six-speed manual feeds the four-wheel-drive system, all riding on a lifted Roadster Shop RS4 chassis. A carbon-fiber pickup with a supercharged V8, four-wheel drive and a proper manual transmission? Nobody had that on their SEMA bingo card.
2
Widebody Ford Maverick By Tucci Hot Rods
The Ford Maverick is supposed to be a sensible compact pickup, but Tucci Hot Rods clearly didn’t get that memo. The shop took the widebody 2022 Maverick it showed at SEMA in 2021 and swapped the four-cylinder for a twin-turbocharged Gen 2 5.0-liter Coyote V8. That meant cutting the transmission tunnel and firewall, since the Coyote was designed to sit lengthwise and the Maverick’s engines sit sideways.
The target output is around 800 horsepower, more than triple the stock 2.0-liter EcoBoost’s 250 hp. A ZF 8HP70 eight-speed automatic handles transmission duties, with an S550 Mustang rear differential out back. The exhaust is the best party trick here, with the turbo and wastegate outlets exiting through the front fenders right where the factory fender vents sit. It’s hard to imagine anything more entertaining than pulling up in what looks like an ordinary Maverick and letting everyone hear what’s hiding under the hood.
1
1965 Ford Falcon By Dillon Houck
The final entry takes a rather different approach to the classic Ford engine swap. Dillon Houck’s 1965 Falcon, Project SHO-OFF, runs the 24-valve V6 from a 1991 Ford Taurus SHO, and Houck topped it with a ProCharger P-1SC supercharger for good measure. The catch is that the SHO engine was built for a transverse, front-wheel-drive layout. Houck adapted it for rear-wheel drive with a Tremec T-5 five-speed manual, new engine mounts and 108 custom-designed parts from OSH Cut, a far bigger job than dropping in a small-block Ford.
The SHO V6 was developed and built by Yamaha, made 220 hp and revved past 7,000 rpm, which turned a family sedan into a cult sleeper. Houck’s Falcon debuted in this form at SEMA 2025 and came back for 2026. It’s a refreshing change from the endless stream of Coyote and LS swaps, and a good reminder that there’s more than one way to build an entertaining classic Ford.
Source: SEMA
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