Kit Cars, Kitsch Cars & Incredibly Fast Cars: Part 1 of 2; SEMA shines like Liberace's pinkie ring.(Specialty Equipment Market Association)

Byline: BOB GRITZINGER, ROGER HART, DUTCH MANDEL, MARK VAUGHN

** Technically, they could hold the SEMA show anywhere. All they need is 2 million square feet of floor space and enough extension cords to power Peru. But they hold it in Las Vegas every year, because the automotive aftermarket is just as necessary to life as we know it as the Liberace Museum, a life-size fake volcano and regular performances by Celine Dion. We don't really need any of those things to survive, and we know we really should spend the SUV roof-rack money on the kids' college fund, but we just can't help ourselves. SEMA specializes in automotive trappings that could be called superfluous, but for reasons we can never explain to the spouse, we want.

"Bay-buh, ah swear, we'll get better mileage with nitrogen in the taars!''

The automotive aftermarket, in all its chrome-plated, urethane-molded, irritating little blinking-lapel-pin-light glory, is a $29 billion industry. This year 1900 exhibitors, 1400 "journalists,'' 5000 display vehicles and 128,000 buyers, sellers and assorted hangers-on showed up, in full schmooze. This is where you go to find out which rearview-mirror air fresheners are going to be hot this year, how big the chrome wheel will go, and whether fur or ostrich goes best on the dash.

Well, we went. We have the answers.

1. 3dCARBON FORD MUSTANG

Of all the Mustangs at SEMA, there to celebrate the car's 40th anniversary, this one best represents the updated boy racer we've come to lust for. One of its great executions is the seamless integration of a body kit that helps to emphasize its wheel stance. "Someone asked me whether 22-inch wheels are too big,'' said Ford designer Ed Golden. "As far as wheels and tires are concerned, I don't know if anything is too big.''