No other single model has ever possessed a more enduring vision of custom than the 1949-1951 Mercury. Wide whites, chopped top, fenders skirts and flames shooting out the pipes are the calling card of a classis lead sled Merc. There is another requirement of owning a lead-sled, frenched headlights.

Frenching the headlights has been a mainstay of the rodding world since the beginning. In the past, setting the headlights back in the fenders required a lot of custom work, shaping sheet metal, careful measuring, and required specialized tools to get the job done, leaving novice builders out of the loop. Then a few enterprising people started making kits that simplified the frenching process. Not only do these kits take out the guesswork, the result is finished off with shiny trim that sparkles.

Installing one of these kits is quite easy, requiring very few tools and can be completed in a couple of hours. The best part about these frenching kits is that just about any builder to complete.

RPPG, formerly Good Times Productions, manufacturers several frenching kits, including headlights, antennas, tag and several versions of taillights. We took a set of “Custom Beams”, the 7” lamp complete French kit and installed them on a 1951 Mercury. The total job took less than 2 hours and only required a wire-feed welder, grinder, sandpaper and some rattle can primer. This is a seriously easy project that just about any gearhead can do, and it only costs about $250 bucks.

Red Dirt Rodz. Yes, that is the real name for this paint color from House of Kolor. I got to name it. I just hope it makes it to the catalog.

Ok, so I didn’t manage to get day 3 and 4 reviews up. If you have ever been to a show this size, with evening events and all that jazz in a city like Vegas (is there any other city quite like Vegas?), then you might understand, things get crazy. I got home about 1:30 AM on Saturday, and I needed the entire day to veg out and recuperate. My brain hurt. My body was numb. I am starting to come out of the fog, but it has been a slow process. Visceral overload.

Enough about that, here are some highlights from the 2010 SEMA Show-

Top Gear US premier- I got invited to check out the premier screening for Top Gear US. Being a HUGE Top Gear fan, I jumped at the chance. I had to make a hard choice between this and another high-profile event. I anguished for hours over it, but in the end, Top Gear got the nod, and I am glad I went. After the screening, I got to hang out and chat with the hosts and producers of the show for a bit. This show has so much potential, and I can tell you that these are the right guys for the job. One challenge that they showed us included hosts Tanner Foust and Rutledge Wood racing a Viper across a sleepy Georgia town. What were they competing against? A Cobra attack helicopter. It was pretty damn cool.

Cars- It goes without saying that you would be hard pressed to assemble a group of cars like the SEMA show. When you have 5,000 of the best built hot rods, customs, musclecars, and exotics from around the world in one place, going back to the reality of driving a stupid minivan is harsh. Looking at flawless car after flawless car you start to see things that you would never notice if a car was by itself. Paint chips, swirl marks, funky assembly flaws, it is easy to become a critic of cars that cost 100k to build. That said, I don’t spend much time looking at the cars at SEMA. Crazy? maybe, but its the truth.

Girls, Girls, Girls- You know, there is a saying that every group of “hot” people has an ugly person in the mix to even things out. When in vegas, its hard to find the uglies. Seriously, even outside the show, everybody in Vegas is hot. If you can’t find the ugly people, then you might have to look in the mirror and that just makes me sad. Luckily for me, I’m a dude and I don’t really care what I look like, but the scenery is always excellent at the SEMA Show.

SMOKE- Vaughn Gittin Jr. and Ken Block were outside in the parking lot serving up generous helpings of drift action. The Monster Energy Drink stage was the place to be in the evenings with some concert action and you could even manage to get into one of the drift cars and drive it yourself. How cool is that?

Celebrities- If you follow me on Twitter ( @RedDirtRodz and @71BuickFreak), then you likely already saw my posts about my prediliction towards celebrities. I seem to be able to piss them off in ways that you wouldn’t expect. When the celebs are in “celeb mode” we get along well. That means when they are doing an appearance or otherwise working. But I have this habit of zeroing in on them when they aren’t ready to greet their adoring public, and blurting out their names like we go back 20 years. Don’t do that. They get irritiated. And FYI, Big Hoss from History’s PawnStars does not like having his picture taken while playing poker at a private table, who’d a thought……..

General Coolness–Chrome, speed and gears aside, the SEMA Show is full of cool. In recent years, the folks at Valspar, the makers of House of Kolors paint, have brought in some serious talent to display and demonstrate their abilities. One of the coolest things I saw at the show has nothing to do with cars, but was on display at the House of Kolors booth–an airbrushed painting of James Hetfield, front man for Metallica (my favorite band ever), in this evil style. I love this painting.

I have been to Vegas just about every year since 1999, sometimes twice a year, for SEMA and CES (Consumer Electronics Show), and while it is usually for business, it is a lot of fun too. If you ever have the opportunity, I highly suggest you take it, it is well worth the effort.