What’s hot for the aftermarket

In my years as a player in the aftermarket industry, keeping a step ahead of the competition is a key element to be competitive. This explains why in the past couple of years, I have made my visits to the Tokyo Auto Salon and Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA) in Las Vegas part of my annual exodus to remain abreast with what’s hot and what’s not in the aftermarket industry. Going to international aftermarket shows provides a sneak peek into what’s going to be a hit for the rest of the year.

Aside from noticing the dominance of hybrid cars being customized by Japanese tuners, the year that was in Tokyo saw the emergence of big black rims and cars wrapped in foil. It seemed that the Japanese tuners have shifted to promoting black as the new bling.

For 2012, the local aftermarket industry will see the popularity of matte finish and polished lipped rims to hit the market. With brands like Carlsson and BBS joining the fray for a bigger slice of the consumer pie, European brands will now have more choices of aftermarket rims to choose from. This is good news since the Philippines is still considered as a Japanese-car market.

Rims with deep polished lips for luxury sedans will also be hit, because aside from vast aesthetic improvements, big fat tires also provide better traction and performance. The appropriate cars to set up would be the 300C, Mercedes Benz E-Class and the BMW 5 and 7 Series sedans.

Suspension specialist Makna Marketing, exclusive distributors of Bilstein and H&R in the country, is also expected to beef up their inventory with coil-over suspension systems. According to Arvin Lim of Makna, his company will also concentrate on promoting suspension systems for compact to large-size European and Japanese SUV’s. “The local off road scene is getting bigger by the year. For 2012, Wheel Gallery and Bilstein have teamed up to design and build SUV performance package kits for a variety of SUV variants,” adds Lim.

Another hot-ticket item for next year is Atoy Llave’s custom vans and buses. After carving out his name as the King of bodykits in the local scene, Llave’s talent and creativity for transforming ordinary vehicles into rolling art on wheels, has crossed over to vans and buses. His latest creation, the “Pacman” bus, recently got the most number of hits in this paper’s web page. Prior to the Pacquiao custom bus, Llave has also done the vans of big name celebrities such as Kim Chiu, Albert Martinez, Gerald Anderson, Kris Aquino and President P-Noy’s campaign bus, which came equipped with its own Presidential bedroom, a meeting room and bathroom. So if you would want to transform that garden variety van into a mobile bedroom, you know who to call.