SEMA New Product Winners

If you’re the inventor of a cutting-edge piece of equipment, tool or product that can help auto body shops to do a better job, the people at SEMA will give you an opportunity every year to honor your achievement and recognize it throughout the automotive industry worldwide.

These are the Academy Awards for automotive product innovators, and you can almost guarantee success for an established or growing business by capturing one of these highly-respected awards.

This year, more than 1,300 products were entered into 16 different showcase categories to be considered for the SEMA New Product Awards.

Each category has one winner and two runners-up. Winners were judged on a wide range of criteria, including quality, marketability, innovation, technology and consumer appeal, among others.

SEMA’s annual New Product Awards competition recognizes outstanding achievements in the development of products being introduced to the automotive specialty-equipment market at the SEMA Show.

This year’s New Product Award Winners Collision within the Repair & Refinish Product category are:

Winner: The Keco Collision Glue Pull Repair System made by Keco Body Repair Products Runner-up: The Eagle made by Celette, Inc. Runner-up: The Drain Cleaner SR250 made by Reliable Automotive Equipment, Inc.

The winning Keco Collision Glue Pull Repair System includes all of the tools required to complete level 1 repairs requiring minimal body filler to finish. The company website claims “this kit handles medium to x-large damages with ease and precision. Tools are easily organized on the designated GPR cart. The tab organizer will ensure you limit lost tabs and keep your shop looking clean and tidy.”

The system’s ideal for technicians looking to simply rough out damage that will ultimately need

Chris White, owner of Keco Body Repair Products, holds the trophy his company received when its Keco Collision Glue Pull Repair System was named a SEMA Best New Product Award winner in the Collision Repair and Refinish category

a filler for finishing, and features K-Beam® and Slide Hammers to provide the ability to make double-action pulls, and the K-Bar to perform leverage pulls that move tons of metal fast.

JVF Body Hammers and Slappies are great for knocking down crowns and releasing tension while repairing damage, and include medium-sized crease tabs as well as large and x-large Centipede and Supertabs in all the most popular shapes, sizes and materials.

It also includes a designated glue pull cart and tab organizer to keep tools and tabs clean and organized in your auto body shop.

One of the two runners-up awards goes to the Eagle 3D Electronic measuring system made by Celette, Inc., headquartered in Lombard, IL.

It’s a high-definition laser system that shoots the target in milliseconds with the measuring results displayed in the software. It features a self-learning user interface that enables users achieve more accurately when compared to traditional technology.

A 65-year-old company, Celette delivers highly productive and

innovative auto body repair equipment to the collision repair industry. With everything they make, Celette designs products with the aim to offer solutions for repairing accident damages as well as to increase profitability of the body shop by reducing process time and the insurance man-hour time.

The company is well-known for its worldwide Celette Technical Training Academy, and recently expanded its international footprint by establishing a new training facility in Chonburi, Thailand.

Other features of the Eagle 3D Electronic measuring system features include online 3D software for vehicle database; and wireless connectivity between the laser gun, targets and software, with WiFi technology.

Unlike traditional technology, the Eagle does not require reference points measurement. Leveling of the vehicle is not required and it provides an insurance diagnosis report after the measurement to create documentation using OE data. With Eagle, users can perform a complete vehicle body measurement in less than 10 minutes with an accuracy of +/- 0.5 mm.

Celette’s North American National Manager Bob Stevenson is thrilled to capture one of the two runner-up spots at SEMA because he knows the value of this coveted award.

“We want to do a simple thankyou to the people of SEMA and recognizing us for being an innovative company and a leader in the collision repair industry,” Stevenson said. “We did a soft launch of the Eagle starting back in 2019 and the feedback we received from body shops all over the country has been very positive. Technicians appreciate its ease of use and body shop owners love the price, which is 75% less than the competition.”

The other runners-up award went to The Drain Cleaner SR250 made by Reliable Automotive Equipment, Inc. (RAE).

Founded in 1987, RAE designs and markets equipment solutions to the ever-changing automotive market in the U.S., Europe and Asia, as it produces repair training curriculum and certification programs for use by collision repair facilities.

In partnership with the OEMs and equipment manufacturers, RAE has both influenced and provided instructor-led training in OE repair procedures and their related tools and equipment. With RAE’s experience and its connection to those who engineer both the vehicle and its repair, the company has built a reputation for outstanding product performance, unsurpassed product quality and most of all, the human touch.

Field Engineer at RAE Robert Gruskos made a statement immediately receiving the award.

“We at Reliable Automotive Equipment and Wielander & Schill are honored to be selected as a runner-up for SEMA’s New Product Showcase,” Gruskos said. “We have developed a reputation for being problem solvers and our new Drain Cleaner SR250 definitely falls neatly into that category.”

www.autobodynews.com UPDATED DAILY

ALLDATA’s latest update makes it easy for auto repairers to instantly access Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) information, direct from the OEMs.

Now, clicking on ADAS Quick Reference takes users directly to vehicle-specific ADAS information in ALLDATA Repair® or ALLDATA Collision®, the industry’s leading repair information software products.

The ADAS Quick Reference feature links directly to the ADAS system/component by name, provides the location of the component that may have been damaged in a collision, identifies component removal/replacement that could result in extra labor for calibration or sublet costs and includes basic calibration information, required tools and prerequisites for servicing ADAS components.

Source: ALLDATA

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