SEMA Ignited!

The SEMA Show was four days of amazing awesomeness, but it was only accessible to Industry professionals. So on Friday night, after the show ends, SEMA hosted SEMA ignited.

Several hundred cars from the show are selected to parade from the convention center to the event and The Cruisin Cone was there!

PJ was busy INSIDE the Cruisin Cone, driving and having a great time! Actually, the metro van was FULL of people having a great time. 

I'm really grateful for all the pictures of our ice cream truck that have been popping up on the Internet. 

Here are two that show off the colors and the lights. 

But the whole idea behind SEMA Ignited is seeing these cars MOVE so here are a few that I found. This is a video link to nice all around shot of The Cruisin' Cone lit up at night! And here is an Instagram video of The Cruisin Cone rolling through SEMA Ignited!

Cyber Stalking the Cruisin Cone!

In case you haven't figured it out by now, The Cruisin Cone is a family business. PJ Burchett and his dad Larry Burchett (both of B-Rod or Custom) are the design and build team. I'm PJ's wife and, while he's off in Las Vegas, I'm at home cyber stalking The Cruisin Cone to add content to this blog and the Instagram account (@cruisincone). PJ must be having a great (busy) time because I haven't seen many pictures from him yet. However, the Cruisin Cone is popping up all over the Internet!

Gauge Magazine was one of the first to show off the Cruisin Cone. 

It's a lot of fun scrolling through random SEMA pictures and finding The Cruisin Cone!

In fact, by Thursday evening, if you searched #icecreamtruck on Instagram, a picture of The Cruisin Cone was one of the top posts! 

As the week ends, many websites are posting their SEMA round ups. 

The Cruisin Cone was selected by Top Gear for a post on the "Modified Oddballs of SEMA 2015"!  Here's the link. We are picture number 6. Out of TWELVE! http://www.topgear.com/car-news/concept/gallery-modified-oddballs-sema-2015#1

Eastwood featured it in a SEMA daily wrap up! Check it out at http://www.eastwood.com/blog/eastwood-chatter/cars-of-sema-2015-wednesday-update/

MSN.com featured The Cruisin Cone as one of SEMA's Wildest Wheels! Here's the link. http://www.msn.com/en-ie/cars/enthusiasts/crazy-cars-sema-show’s-wildest-wheels/ss-BBmRmxn

And then, my favorite Cruisin Cone image  so far, is the rendering on the official T-shirts! I'm sure PJ will share info on purchasing a shirt soon.

SEMA Day 1

The Cruisin Cone was all set up for the first day of the SEMA Show and there was a special surprise!

Axalta hired a model and bought a freezer full of ice cream treats to hand out!

Over 400 ice creams were handed out in the first hour!

That's a LOT of foot traffic AND a lot of satisfied customers!

Painting the Cruisin' Cone

The Cruisin Cone is currently being featured in the Axalta Coating Systems display at the 2015 SEMA show in Las Vegas.  The paint is definitely the one element of this project that made the whole thing come alive.  While the paint has only been complete for a short time, PJ has been planning for the paint for a long time. 

At one time, the ice cream truck was going to have a retro tiki vibe with the idea of selling shaved ice. That moved to just a retro ice cream truck but PJ's early idea had a Mexican blanket vibe. 

PJ's wife insisted that classic red and white stripes were needed. Cheryl also helped design the Cruisin Cone logo. 

Eventually the logo was enlarged and an ice cream cone (with 3 scoops in the colors of a traffic light) was added. Here's the working concept drawing that was created just before SEMA 2014. 

Here's PJ at last year's SEMA show with the brochure about the project, drumming up sponsors. Apparently he was also checking out potential uniforms. Uh, huh. Right!

Here's an early mock up of the final paint design in but done in chalk. 

Fast forward to early autumn 2015. With only a few weeks until SEMA, the body work was FINALLY finished and the Metro Van was ready for paint!

The logo being outlined. 

Taping and painting the initial layers.

Masking and taping the stripes. 

Painting the stripes. 

Hand lettering and pin stripping by Howard Horn (www.pinstripesbyhoward.com) and the Cruisin' Cone was ready for Las Vegas!

Getting Ready for SEMA

So, we were posting quite a bit over the summer and then the push to get the Metro Ban ready for SEMA got SERIOUS!  

Well, for PJ it was serious. The kids managed to have some fun, especially when it was warm and daddy was wet sanding! But daddy was ALWAYS at the shop and everyone was too busy to fool around much with pictures. 

If the kids wanted to see daddy, we went to the shop where he worked his regular job during the day, then worked on the ice cream truck until it was really late. Things were happening, but it was hard to see for a while and the , suddenly, within a very short span of time.....

The PAINT was applied and the ice cream truck came alive! This was only a few days before PJ had to leave for the SEMA Show in Las Vegas. 

Suddenly everyone could see what PJ's vision had been all along!