By David Bellm

Once widely regarded as a quirky niche segment of motorsports, diesels now have the performance to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with more established forms of racing. 
“Ten or 20 years ago, diesel racing was a novelty,” observed Jared Alderson of Kill Devil Diesel, Poplar Branch, North Carolina. “It was almost more of an exhibition, like, ‘All right, here comes the smoke show, then we’ll get back to real racing.’”

Fast forward to the present, and the snickering has stopped. Diesel racers are laying down ETs within striking range of the quickest gas cars. That’s brought newfound respect to the category, fueling an increase in mainstream attention for diesel as yet another option for going fast and competing.

To find out where this vibrant, relatively young performance segment is headed, we talked with leading experts in diesel performance. From that, we picked some of the more noteworthy diesel performance and racing trends you’ll likely see at the 2022 SEMA Show. 

Mid-3-Sec. Diesels

While the gas drag-racing community pursues gains in hundredths of a second or smaller, diesel racers are shattering records by whole tenths of a second. For example, Firepunk Diesel’s Cummins-powered Chevrolet S-10 Pro Mod steadily marched its way down the 4-sec. eighth-mile range in a short period. Then, in 2021, it set a new record with a blistering 3.99 pass—the first diesel to break the four-second mark. This trend is sure to continue, according to our sources.

Purpose-Built Chassis

Perhaps one of the most startling facts about the recent increases in diesel racing performance is that, so far, it’s been done with relatively little attention given to chassis development. Most racers in diesel’s top ranks are using modified stock frames or castoff gas-car chassis. This is likely to change soon. 

“Going lighter is definitely the trend,” observed Alderson. “You can race a 7,000- or 8,000-lb. truck. Guys do it. It’s very popular. But it’s really hard on parts.”

Greater Precision in Tuning

Diesel performance is still largely uncharted territory; it simply doesn’t have as many proven standards and baseline methods as gas engines. But as the segment gets more established, it’s getting more sophisticated about tuning, according to our sources. 

Less Turbo, More Nitrous

Diesels produce such massive amounts of torque that it can actually be counterproductive in drag racing. Now racers are seeking ways to reduce and control that torque more effectively. One way to do so is to use one instead of two turbos, and then add plenty of nitrous to make up the difference. This combination is quickly becoming a standard approach for diesel drag racers.

“A 2,000hp diesel engine is typically making close to 3,000 lb.-ft. of torque,” explained Alderson. “And we don’t necessarily want that much. So a lot of guys have gone away from big compound turbos that make 200 lbs. of boost. Instead, they’re going back to a medium or large single turbo with a bunch of nitrous. The nitrous is a lot more manageable. With a nitrous controller and a timer, you can really control the power band a lot easier than you can with just boost.”

Stronger Components

“One of the most common ways to control torque in a diesel is just to increase the rpm band of the engine,” said Alderson. “But then that inherently stresses components. The rotating assemblies on diesels are so heavy that it becomes a factor. And then, there’s the valvetrain. People think of these as 3,000–4,000 rpm engines. But as guys spin 6,000 rpm going down the track, the factory valvetrain becomes largely insufficient. 

“At the same time, diesels have a lot of cylinder pressure,” continued Alderson. “Some of the competition diesels approach what Top Fuel dragsters see for cylinder pressure. So when exhaust valves open, they have to overcome many thousands of psi of cylinder pressure. With that environment, we find that the factory rockers just aren’t adequate. So we’re working with Jesel to develop an exclusive line of rocker arms and valvetrain components.”

Superchargers Instead of Turbos

Several engine builders are experimenting with various types of superchargers instead of turbos on diesel engines. .

“A lot of diesel guys are struggling with throttle response,” said Alderson. “They’ve gone away from compound turbos, and they end up with a giant single turbo in a competition setting—they have to use nitrous to get the turbo spooled up. If they have to lift and get out of the throttle pedal going down the track, they lose boost, and it sniffs the turbo out. But from a throttle-response standpoint, blowers are awesome.”

Factory Power Wars 

While mainstream performance enthusiasts have been going gaga for years over the factory musclecar power wars, there’s also been a parallel fight among OEMs for the most powerful diesel crown. All of the Big Three’s diesels are now rated at 1,000 lb.-ft. or very close to it. And the fight is only going to get more intense, say experts. That gives racers a lot of ready-made raw material to start with. 

“Diesel has quietly been having its own private horsepower war,” explained Jake Hopkins of FASS Diesel Fuel Systems, Marthasville, Missouri. “We’ve seen manufacturers leapfrog each other year after year with bigger torque numbers, bigger horsepower numbers, bigger towing capacity, bigger everything. We don’t see that slowing down anytime soon.”

More Aftermarket Involvement

Although big-name aftermarket manufacturers don’t appear to be rushing into the diesel market just yet, there will undoubtedly be more companies developing parts as the market grows more financially viable. This will further accelerate the performance improvements of diesel racers and make it easier for average enthusiasts to jump into the sport.

“As more people race diesels, that creates a bigger market for manufacturers,” said Snyder. “At that point, it makes sense for them to start developing parts, and the whole thing just gets bigger.”

As diesel racers reach unprecedented performance levels, they’re finally seeing the rewards of their tight-knit, collaborative community.

Can Sales Keep Rolling as the World Enters a “New Normal”?

Traditionally, wheels and tires are among the first upgrades that vehicle owners make to their cars or trucks. In fact, SEMA Market Research has identified them as “gateway drugs” to further vehicle modification, making them key products driving consumer engagement with the aftermarket.

According to the “2022 SEMA Market Report,” the market size for performance and special-purpose tires, off-road and oversize tires and custom wheels grew to $2.79 billion, $2.13 billion and $1.55 billion, respectively, through 2021. While those numbers imply that the wheel and tire category stayed largely buoyant through the pandemic, some market observers caution that challenging undercurrents may lay ahead—especially for the tire industry.

The Tire Market: Grappling With Uncertainties

Last year’s “Insider’s Guide to the Tire Industry in 2021” report from Tire Industry Research (TIR) painted a picture of a global tire market in post-pandemic recovery but “still facing multiple crises.”

“Those largely relate to upstream forces such as transport logistics, materials availability and currency exchange rates,” TIR said in its analysis. “Energy costs, raw materials costs and logistics costs are rising fast. There are shortages of truck drivers in many parts of the world. Some tire factories—especially in the first quarter—have had to close or go on short-time working due to shortages of raw materials. Currently, high absentee rates have started to limit output.”

Tire Industry Association (TIA, booths #40067 and #41067) Chief Technical Officer Kevin Rohlwing noted at last year’s SEMA Show that manufacturing interruptions coupled with a sudden rebound in consumer demand were putting additional pressures on markets.

“When the tire manufacturers shut down their plants because of COVID, tire inventories went down,” Rohlwing observed. “Then the return to work and the ‘new normal’ came faster than expected, so you’re in a situation right now where there are some backlogs. Tires aren’t something that you can just build on demand. It’s not one-size-fits-all manufacturing.”

Rohlwing also underscored the global nature of tire manufacturing. Sourcing raw materials from Southeast Asia, South America and Europe puts multiple constraints even on U.S.-based tire makers. Then there’s also the labor shortage and related costs to consider. 

According to Joe Podlovits, vice president of marketing and product development for The Wheel Group (booth #44037), political and financial instabilities in source countries further roiled the tire market. But the greatest challenge for tire makers going in to 2022 was simply moving inventory through U.S. ports. He said the industry would be “in a better inventory position on tires” once supply-chain issues settled down.

According to Jackson Marketing Group Director of Business Development Todd Steen, who chairs SEMA’s Wheel & Tire Council (WTC), a trend to watch will be the increasing number of companies and equity groups consolidating house brands to gain capital or leverage buying power. 

“There’s a demand to grow,” he explained. “I truly believe that you’re just going to continue seeing mergers and acquisitions happening as those demands keep going so the growth can be there.”

Changing Buying Habits

Meanwhile, as manufacturers wrestled with global challenges, retailers were facing many of their own on the home front. 

“The buying habits of the tire industry are antiquated because tire sizes are kind of a mystery to some people,” Steen said. 
Podlovits saw that phenomenon playing out in the ongoing growth of online purchasing, which offers consumers a greater sense of convenience.

“In my opinion, COVID really accelerated that, and I think that the industry would agree it has taught people a new way to buy,” he observed. “They’ve become very comfortable with the idea of buying online. I think there’s also that Amazon mentality of ‘I want my products and I want them today.’”

Jared Kugel, founder and CEO of Tire Agent, is among the growing number of entrepreneurs who have entered that online retail space. His company offers consumers major-brand tires at a savings and then ships those tires within two to four business days directly to their homes or to an installer of their choice.

“I think brick-and-mortar will always have a dominant space,” he explained. “Mobile is supplementary, but it’s not a replacement. Brick-and-mortar will always have a place because people will always need it, whether they want to get oil changes or they want to get wheel alignments or mechanical work.”

Nevertheless, Rohlwing sees current supply-chain issues as well as the growth of direct-to-consumer sales and a rising tide of government regulation putting a squeeze on tire retailers. He cites California’s move to mandate low-rolling-resistance replacement tires as a prime example. That alone will have devastating effects on the small dealers while severely limiting consumer options, he said. 

“Big-box retailers and the multi-chain national retailers and the warehouse clubs will gain a distinct price advantage over small dealers,” he explained, adding that modernizing operations, broadening products and services, and taking advantage of ongoing training will become more important than ever to remaining competitive.

Meanwhile, on the technology side, industry sources expect further improvements in tire-pressure monitoring systems and continued evolution toward “intelligent tires” that can track wear and other tire metrics. As electric vehicles become more ubiquitous, tire design and compounds will undoubtedly morph to match their unique grip and low-rolling-resistance requirements as well. In fact, Steen foresees a future where tires and wheels become integrated, consumable units. 

As for more immediate market trends, with OEMs upping their small-truck lineups, larger-diameter wheels and tires are a sure bet, along with the lifting, accessorizing and suspension work that goes with them. 

“I’m definitely seeing people buy more Tier 1 and Tier 2 [product] than I’ve ever seen,” Kugel observed. “I think what’s interesting is with more people buying vehicles today, they’re taking a lot more pride in their vehicles.”

From 2020 through 2022, both off-roading and overlanding surged in popularity, raising demand for trail- and road-capable wheels and tires for trucks, Jeeps, SUVs and even some CUV and van applications.

 

The Wheel Market: Ready to Roll?

Although it has faced its own supply-chain issues, the wheel market appears relatively stable compared with the tire segment. In fact, like many aftermarket categories, wheels seem to have gotten a boost from pandemic-weary consumers seeking escape from their isolation.

“There was this sweeping movement of people getting back outdoors,” Podlovits said. “That’s probably been one of the most enjoyable things to watch: families getting together, buying products, going out, camping—even people who just hadn’t done that before. There’s been that itch to vacation.”

Reflecting this trend, Podlovits said last year The Wheel Group was seeing increased demand for its low-pressure cast wheels in 15- and 17-in. diameters. 

“That indicates more of what we would consider outdoors, overland or adventure-type builds,” he explained, adding that his company also had seen a huge increase in SUV applications—namely Subaru.
Wheel manufacturing has become more and more competitive over the past decade. However, smaller wheel makers are still finding niches of opportunity, even amid the chaos wreaked by the recent pandemic.

“We all know that when you modify a car, you modify a wheel, which makes it a very competitive market to be in,” said Litespeed Racing CEO Patrick Warren. “There’s a lot of marketing money being put out there and a lot of wheels being sold solely based on brand awareness. It’s been a great thing for us to win the [2021] New Product Award, because Litespeed Racing is a smaller company that really focuses on the product but doesn’t have as much financing for big marketing compared to the other really big names.”

In particular, CAD software, access to manufacturing and a creative eye have allowed a number of smaller companies to deliver highly customized wheels to high-end consumers.

Meanwhile, Podlovits said that the wheel market can expect to see further innovations and manufacturing refinements in the coming years, especially in the area of flow-forming, which he believes will become the predominant production style for mid- and larger-size wheels. But the real challenge will be in the retail space, where brick-and-mortar shops will have to become more nimble to keep up with the changing consumer landscape.

“If you’re a traditional wheel and tire shop, you’ve got to look at easy bolt-on accessories for installations,” he advised. “Customers are doing more to their vehicles quicker than ever today, so if a customer is buying a wheel and tire package—and bumper, truck-rack and storage solutions—they want that done in one place and one trip. If a shop is not offering that, they’re going to lose a customer to a competitor.”

Staying on top of wheel and tire trends, technologies and new products will be just as vital. “Customers have that information at their fingertips today and are very aware of what’s new and what’s coming out,” Podlovits explained. “If a dealer is not aware of what customers are seeing and asking for, they’re going to be left behind.”  

Industry experts believe that supply-chain ripples will continue to afflict the tire industry—and to a lesser degree the wheel market—going into 2023. The question is how much soaring costs of materials, production, shipping, warehousing and labor will ulti

This year’s show brings builders, restorers and shop owners plenty of learning opportunities to experience and understand the latest trends affecting their businesses. Below are four seminars that may be of special interest. For information about all the Show’s educational offerings, including how to register, visit 
www.SEMAShow.com/education.

EVs Aren’t Freezing Out ICE Vehicles Yet 

• Tuesday, November 1, 9:00 a.m.– 10:00 a.m. 
• Location: N254 

As original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) transition new-vehicle production from internal combustion engines (ICE) to battery-powered electrics, solutions continue to be created that deliver zero emissions to ICE vehicles. Learn about the latest innovations and developments in sustainable ICE solutions.

Women Who Build, Powered by SBN 

• Tuesday, November 1, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
• Location: N258 

Ten years after the SEMA Businesswomen’s Network (SBN) led an award-winning all-female Ford Mustang Build, a new team of SBN women volunteer builders assembled to modify a Ford Bronco four-door Wildtrak provided by Ford’s Bronco brand. You’ll be inspired by the panel of all-female builders as they share how their team of volunteers were able to successfully collaborate to accomplish their vision at the highest level.

Classic-Car Trends: Preparing for the Future 

• Tuesday, November 1, 3:00 p.m.– 4:00 p.m. 
• Location: N256 

Listen and learn as industry insiders and icons share their thoughts on the future of the classic-car market. Whether you’re looking to buy a classic car or prepare your car-building business for the next trend, this is a must-attend session.

Restoration Builders’ Panel 

• Wednesday, November 2, 9:00 a.m.–10:00 a.m.
• Location: N258 

While numbers matching—used to describe a collector car in which all parts have factory serial numbers—is still important to purists, so are the modern-day conveniences, performance and technology found in today’s vehicles. Hear from top restorers and builders as they discuss industry trends and the evolution of the restoration market, from traditional restorations to restomods.

A Panel of Experts Weighs in on Breaking the Stigma and Embracing Vehicle Electrification

They’re more reliable, cleaner, and they pack a punch. So why all the hesitancy surrounding electric vehicles (EVs)? Misconceptions regarding range, V8 growl nostalgia and battery weight are three reasons, according to an expert panel who addressed the topic at last year’s SEMA Show.

The SEMA Show education session entitled “Future-Proofing Classic and Collector Cars” delved deeply into this concept. Moderated by Larry Edsall of Classiccars.com, the panel featured Michael Bream, chief executive of EV West; Marc Davis, CEO of Moment Motor Co.; Craig Jackson, CEO of Barrett-Jackson (booth #21427); Kirk Miller, vice president of AEM Performance Electronics; Dave Pericak, director of Ford Future Electric Vehicles; and Adam Roe, CEO of Zero Labs Automotive. 

Here’s what the experts had to say last year, edited for length and clarity.

Edsall: Why can’t we just assume that we can drive our petroleum cars forever? Why are you convinced that we have to convert to electric?

Roe: Two reasons. One is reliability. The classics are hard to support. They break down a lot. For some people here, that’s the fun part. But for most people, it’s not fun. If you look at EPA data before there were measured emissions, these cars are 4,000 to 5,000 times worse in many cases than new cars. 

Bream: There’s a safety aspect as well. The drivability is much improved when you’re adding power steering, power brakes, modern systems and climate control. We’re all up here because we love classic cars, and an electric modification gives them longevity.

Miller: The ability to do an EV conversion without molesting that valuable classic car is impressive. You can look at a lot of the classic cars that these guys here have built. They’ve done an amazing job of preserving the shell, and they’ve made it so that the internal-combustion engine (ICE) components can be preserved, so if at some point they want to revert back to ICE, the opportunity is there.

Davis: If you’re hacking these cars up and making them different than they used to be, you lose the aftermarket. You lose the ability to continue to enhance and build the car for the future. There are a lot of reasons we do this. Yes, ecologically, but we love classic cars and that classic driving experience. The connection we have with these cars is visceral. We can maintain all of that and the love and joy we get while driving these cars by essentially replacing what gets them down the road.

Miller: You can talk about a Volkswagen bus that has 35 hp, which is frightening to get on the freeway. Now you put a 120hp electric motor in it, and it becomes fun to drive. 

Edsall: People used to take the old engines out of their classic cars and put in crate motors and upgrade the brakes. The car looked the same, but it was now a restomod. It was controversial. The purists thought it was stupid, but Craig Jackson was a champion of that. Is this the next step?

Jackson: We have to embrace what the next generation likes. A lot of them love the look of the car but not necessarily how it drives. So restomods came along, and they’ve gone to such a level to make them drive super nice, but they still look stock. I think the next evolution is to build an electric restomod.

Pericak: We just introduced a new electric crate motor. It’s the actual motor that comes out of the Mach-E GT. To show what you can do with it, we put it in an F-100. The electric motor has 634 lb.-ft. of instantaneous torque. That’s what we all dream about.

Edsall: There’s a hesitancy with some people with new electric vehicles because of range. Are you finding that with your customers who are doing conversions?

Roe: We have to assume that you’re not getting a classic electric car because you’re trying to win the Nürburgring or drive across the country. If that’s your function, then there are a lot of other cars out there for that. When the first highways started opening up 100 years ago, people were trying to determine how far the average car needed to go in a day, and after about 50 years of highways, it was about 25 mi. Here we are today, and it’s still about 25 mi. We’re not going any further than we were on average. 

Pericak: Range anxiety is a true thing, but there’s an education that has to happen around this because most people don’t drive the kind of miles that they think they drive. The battery technology is changing all the time, and you’ll be able to charge a lot faster.

Edsall: There’s a perception that this industry is dependent on leftover motors after Teslas crash. Why is that perception wrong? How is it changing?

Bream: The economics of it, you have these cars that are very expensive, they become for the most part undrivable, but a lot of the componentry is still good. We use that and the economics from it, and that drives what we’re doing. 

Roe: There are thousands of parts that go into any car, but electric conversion, especially, is a mix of what you can find that’s available and what you have to salvage. There’s no perfect answer. Many shops do a good job of pushing as many parts as you need, but there’s still stuff missing. There’s always going to be a 
transition. 

Davis: This industry is at the fledgling stage. As companies like AEM bring in control systems, and companies like Cascadia bring motors to the market, we’ll no longer have to dig through the scrap pile and re-engineer Tesla parts. It will be a whole new world.

Miller: With EVs, we’re at the infancy. You want to be at the leading edge. From AEM’s perspective, we’re at the bleeding edge with the resources we’ve pumped into this technology. We are hemorrhaging. We have a huge conviction that this is part of our future.

Roe: It’s all about hooking up an electric motor to a transmission. But what you get when you put a high-output motor coupled to a system that was never designed to handle that, it’s like putting a rocket on a tricycle in some cases. It just can’t handle it. 

Edsall: Say you’re at the SEMA Show and you have a customer who wants to electrify his classic car. What do you do?

Bream: I think you should be excited for the future. You’re getting into something that’s going to give your shop a lot of marketing and longevity. We’re not measuring carbon, we’re just trying to build very fast, high-performance electric vehicles, and the side effect is a cleaner environment.

Pericak: This is one of the reasons it’s so exciting. You always want more performance, but it came with a negative effect to the environment. Now it’s the reverse. You’re getting way more performance than you ever have in the past, and in a way that is responsible to the planet.

Edsall: Won’t people miss the sound of the exhaust?

Bream: Electric actually predates gas. We did a land-speed car this year at Bonneville, and people are surprised to know that the first six land-speed records were electric.

Davis: People are concerned that you’re going to lose the soul of the car, but once you take them for a ride in an electric car, they start to understand. It’s just the sound. You instantly forget about it when you get in the car, hit the pedal and that torque hits you.

Roe: From a behavioral perspective, nostalgia isn’t a remembrance of the past; it’s a misremembrance of the past. You’ve glorified and sanitized how you thought about the past and left out all the things you didn’t like. What you think you love in the past is a lie. The sound is more for peer-bonding. Your buddies like it, but you get over it pretty quickly because you tend to think that the sound of the car defines you as the man. Let’s find something else to define that. 

Pericak: The visceral sound was an indicator of power. It’s going to be different for EVs—and we’re just scratching the surface of performance EVs. I don’t want to erase what it was before. Of course I love the sound of a V8, but it’s going to be different, and there will be different cues to determine how powerful something is.

Consumer Demand Continues for Pickups and Crossovers; Overlanding Remains a Growth Sector; Electrification Continues Apace.

More than half of all vehicles on the road in the United States are either pickups, SUVs or CUVs. According to the most recent issue of “SEMA Future Trends,” the light-truck segment (which includes pickups, vans, SUVs and CUVs) is forecast to account for close to 80% of all new-vehicle sales by 2027, with pickups alone making up nearly 50% of all new vehicles sold. 

New-vehicle sales in 2021 remained relatively flat compared to 2020, with an estimated 14.9 million units sold—a 2.5% increase over the previous year, according to Cox Automotive. Shortages of semiconductors kept inventories low for most of the period, and the year ended with roughly 1 million units on dealer lots, down from 3.5 million in pre-pandemic 2019. 

More promisingly for the truck and off-road segment, pickups, SUVs and crossovers represented more than 80% of all new-vehicle sales in the month of December, according to J.D. Power & Associates. For the year, the top three best-selling vehicles in the United States were ½-ton pickups from Ford, Ram and Chevrolet, and seven of the top 10 U.S. best sellers in 2021 were either trucks, SUVs or 
crossovers.

For this article, we consulted a number of industry leaders for their perspectives on the overall state of the marketplace. What follows is a summation of their views.

The State of The Industry: Pent-Up Demand, Record Growth

“The industry is still very healthy,” said Ted Wentz, CEO of Quadratec (booth #58085). “The entire industry experienced massive growth during the pandemic. We undertook years of growth in a period of around nine months.”

“There aren’t a lot of new cars entering the market anymore,” said Jenna Jefferies, national account manager for Pertronix Performance Brands (booth #23135). “We’re backordered for months on end—and growing, growing, growing.”

On a related note, PSC Motorsports COO Randall Speir noted the many new truck and SUV models, such as Chevrolet’s Colorado Trail Boss and Ford’s Ranger Raptor, that are more off-road-friendly in design than their predecessors. 

“We have new entrants in the market, with Ford coming in and Chevrolet with some new things, and now Rivian,” he said. “We’ve got lots of new off-road-focused vehicles coming into the market, and that’s great, because they give us platforms we can use to make cool products for them.”

All of our experts similarly agreed that the combination of pandemic lockdowns, corporate work-from-home directives and government stimulus checks contributed to the growth of the sector.

“People wanted to get outside, and they had time on their hands to go outside with their vehicles and have fun with their families, so that played a big part in it,” Speir said.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a bit of a growth in replacement parts as people were just trying to keep their vehicles running and didn’t necessarily feel comfortable going to shops,” Wentz said. “Now we’re seeing growth in categories that support an outdoor lifestyle.”

From a business perspective, the pandemic also gave many companies a chance to reevaluate and reassess their existing sales and marketing models and to make adaptations to changes in the marketplace.

“With the pandemic, everybody had an opportunity to sit down at their desks, take a breather, think about what they could do differently, and now they’re bringing great things to market,” said Charlene Bower, owner of Bower Motorsports Media. “As business owners, we’ve all had a chance to review what we’ve been doing and see what we need to continue and what we need to redevelop—from services to products to everything in between.”

Digital Resources: The New Media Landscape

Bower also heads Bower Academy, an educational program that provides hands-on instruction for women in subjects ranging from off-road driving and vehicle maintenance and repair to principles of Tread Lightly! and other topics. When the pandemic hit and indoor hands-on learning wasn’t feasible, “I took a nap for two weeks to think about what I could do differently with my business,” she said. 

“I rotated all my educational programs online as opposed to being in-person. We have online classes now through Bower Academy, which includes how-to classes, and I was able to turn my backyard into an area where girls can learn and train.”

Along with providing online content for customers, many companies learned to leverage the power of social media to maximize consumer outreach.

“While face-to-face and meeting at events are the best ways to interact with customers, social media is an extension of word-of-mouth with photos,” Speir said. “People want to be a part of something, so it’s great that we have a social network and that we have Facebook Groups and things that are around our industry. It’s becoming a big part of promoting our brand.”

Social media is huge, Wentz agreed. “It’s another touchpoint to communicate with your customers and to create a community,” he said. “As the younger generations move up in the workforce, they’re generating capital, and they’re ready to go have some fun with their vehicles. If you want to communicate with those folks, you need to find a way to do so in the channels they’re comfortable with.”

While acknowledging social media’s brand-building potential, Wentz also offered a word of caution when dealing with a form of media that’s still rapidly evolving. 
“TikTok is big right now, and for now, that’s the big growth channel,” he said. “What we tend to see with these new social-media outlets is that sometimes they go up in popularity really quickly, and sometimes they stay popular and sometimes they don’t. You have to be cautious about how you invest in these things and make sure you don’t overcommit to something that isn’t going to be around tomorrow.”

Outdoor Lifestyles: Opportunities for Growth

All of our sources also agreed that the steady popularity of overlanding remains a bright spot in the market. First popularized in Australia, the hobby caught on quickly in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa before catching fire in North America, where it has grown exponentially over the past decade and a half. 

“It’s not just overlanding,” Wentz said. “It’s whatever you can use on your vehicle to enjoy being outside. Overlanding’s a part of that, sure, but anything to do with biking or hiking or fishing [is becoming popular]—any of those things you can do outside and that allow you to accessorize your vehicle to help achieve that.”

“We’re also seeing some movement in the crossover segment—Subarus for one—and that is bringing new customers to our industry.” Speir said. 
That said, overlanding is still a huge deal, Jefferies said, noting that the Jeep market is still going, and the Bronco market is taking off. 

“Work-from-home options during the pandemic gave people the opportunity to go adventure while still being successful at their businesses, and I see that trend continuing going forward,” Bower added. 

Future Challenges and Opportunities

Nearly all of our experts said that staffing issues pose the greatest potential obstacle to growth in the short term.
“Right now, the labor shortage is a real problem,” Wentz said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Speir agreed. “We’re not finding enough people who want to work,” he said. “The pandemic may have changed the way some people feel about life and changed their priorities, and that may have had an effect on the job market. Hopefully, we’ll see some additional influx into technical schools where kids are actually working on vehicles and falling in love with working on them, and that will refresh out talent pool. Getting involved in educating the future of our industry is a tremendous opportunity.”

Jefferies concurred, adding that it’s crucial to get the youth involved in the market. 

Supply-chain issues also pose an ongoing challenge, although Wentz sees signs of improvement in the not-too-distant future. 

“I’m seeing some signs that there could be some normalization coming at some point in 2022, but I think we’re going to have to ride this supply-chain issue for a while,” he said. “It’s definitely a challenge.”

A further potential problem facing the off-road side of the market is maintaining access to public lands.

“That’s one of our biggest issues at the Truck & Off-Road Alliance,” Speir said. “We must make sure that people take care of the land and that we don’t lose our access.” 

Jefferies also noted the rapid growth of electrification in the truck sector and the need to keep up with the latest OE technologies. 

“I think EVs are a huge thing that we’ll need to get adjusted to, and that will require adaptation by our industry,” 
she said. 

More than 1.2 million HEVs or EVs were sold in the United States in 2021, a 75% increase over 2020 and a combined 8% of all new-vehicle sales. 

Still, our panel believes that the foreseeable future is still relatively bright for the industry. Wentz offered this advice for businesses looking to increase their market presence in the coming year:

“From an opportunity perspective, the industry has acquired more customers over an 18-month period than it has ever had before. What are we going to do with those customers? What are we going to innovate for them? What are we going to do to keep them interested in our brands? Those are the kinds of questions we need to be asking ourselves if we want to take advantage of this growth opportunity that’s right in front of us.”