AF Festival has long been the Sunday-after-SEMA show for Southern California, and this year’s edition on November 8 at AleSmith Brewing Company in San Diego kept that tradition going. The idea is simple: once SEMA wraps up in Las Vegas, many of the cars and companies head back to Southern California for a much more relaxed gathering where people can see the builds without a convention center or crowds packed around them.
Autofashion USA has been holding the event since 2007, when it was known as VIP Festival, before it eventually became AF Festival. The shop itself has been part of the San Diego import scene since 2004, the same year Tunerzine started.
The car we came to see was Autofashion’s own 1974 Datsun 260Z, the turbo K-series Road to ZEMA build that made our list of favorite builds from SEMA 2026. Seeing it outside in daylight, on its home turf and with room to walk around it, was a very different experience from seeing it on the SEMA show floor, and it held up.
Also down from Las Vegas and on that same list was the throtl Prelude Type R, the white Idemitsu collaboration fitted with the Civic Type R powertrain and Regamaster EVO II wheels. It was a lot easier to appreciate without the SEMA foot traffic. Round Cat Garage brought out its Stagea, and we also caught up with @fadedsausage and his Skyline.
The vendor side had all the familiar names we’d expect to see at a show like this, including Falken Tire, A’PEXi USA, and GReddy Performance. Many of these cars and companies have just spent the week in Las Vegas before setting up again in San Diego, and judging by the crowd at AleSmith, plenty of people were still ready for more cars after SEMA.
That’s really the appeal of AF Festival. For nearly 20 years, it has given Southern California its own much more casual follow-up to SEMA just a couple of days after the convention center closes. The gallery below covers what we saw.
GalleryPhotos by Jason Siu
