Hot Wheels Ford Transit and custom F-100 break cover at SEMA

Ford is making its Transit Connect van cool the only way it knows how: with the help of Hot Wheels. The company unveiled a customized royal blue van today at SEMA in Las Vegas. Alongside the Transit, the Blue Oval also revealed a customized 1956 Ford F-100 pickup, codenamed Snakebit, for charity.

Ice 9 helped Ford and Hot Wheels prepare the van, ditching every single body panel and reworking them into a widebody, Euro-looking cargo hauler. A 2.5-liter Ti-VCT four-cylinder makes power, which is put to pavement via 20-inch wheels. It features custom exhaust ports on both sides, and gullwing doors. The body was widened 4 inches in front and 6 inches in back.

The interior was also reimagined by Hot Wheels with a Sortimo secondary floor and a set of drawers for tool storage; a 55-inch TV, two 18-inch tablet computers and Recaro racing seats are also installed. Two Hot Wheels tracks run down the middle of the van.

The Hot Wheels van is one of 10 custom Transit Connects at the show as part of Ford's “Vandemonium” extravaganza. The new model will hit showrooms in early 2014.

Snakebit will be sold for charity.

Moving from new to old, Ford also revealed Snakebit at the show, which wears styling cues of the Shelby Mustang. The pickup was unveiled today by KISS great Gene Simmons and wife Shannon Tweed. The truck is part of a fundraising effort to build a children’s hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Tweed’s hometown).

The project was conceived by Tom Foster, president of Industrial Machine and Manufacturing, as a team-building exercise that also helped raise money for a worthy cause. The charity is called Wheels of Dreams and the truck will be auctioned off at next year’s Barrett-Jackson event.

Snakebit gets Ford’s smokin’ 5.4-liter supercharged V8 making 550-hp, transferred to 20-inch rear wheels. The truck has 18s up front. The wheelbase was stretched 5 inches, and the bed has been widened and dressed with billet-machined floor to mimic wood. A custom tonneau cover protects the bed and customized sequential taillights sit out back.

The interior was also styled to match the Shelby cars. The panels are handmade and covered in two-tone leather. The bench seat is from Glide Engineering.

Go to www.wheelsofdreams.ca for more information on the charity and bidding.

SEMA — short for Specialty Equipment Marketing Association — is the biggest aftermarket auto event in the world, held in Las Vegas each fall. The show fills multiple convention halls and shows off everything from high-performance OEM specials to custom wheels and graphics from local shops. Get the full rundown on what automakers and suppliers are up to at the industry's biggest trade show at our SEMA Show home page.

By Jake Lingeman