SouthEx Trade Show (e-industry) - 4th. - 8th. October 2000

Article by Duane Boodasingh
Photography by Duane Boodasingh and Roger Mohammed

SouthEx , what is becoming the largest annual exposition in Trinidad, took on an 'information age' theme this, their 10th year, with the catch phrase "e-Business or Out of Business". Many technology and auto related companies participated in the trade show, including TriniTuner.com, as we linked up with customizing shops who now use our website as a resource for conducting business and showcasing to prospective clients.

Perusing through SouthEx this year we noticed a lack of the "whiz-bang" that is usually synonymous with trade shows. Apart from the noticeably fewer computer technology based companies than last year, there were many furniture and home improvement displays. This did not seem to keep with the theme of the show held at Gulf City Mall, but non-the-less the show was very well attended, perhaps due to its "free" door price.

Taking a very biased approach toward the tradeshow itself we focused most of our attention to the auto section dubbed "e-Industry" by the promoters. Rightfully so, the auto section consisted mainly of booths from paintshops and refinishers, with only one distributor, Toyota, presenting a display. To back up the theme further, Intaco Ltd. used the largest area of the "e-industry" section to show off their high-lift vehicles and other industrial strength equipment. We would like to thank them for letting us use one of their lifts to get a true bird's eye view of the area.

The TriniTuner Crew took up residence at the booth of one of Trinidad's most high-tech refinishing shops, SRF Auto, with customizing finishes supplied by Unique Transport. In the booth we displayed an offline version of this website to visitors as the SRF/Unique crew showed off a striking Accord finished just in time for the show. The Accord was quite a showstopper too, lowered on RActive coilovers, dressed with 17" wheels wrapped in 225/45 rubber. Sporting a billet aluminum grille and triple projector headlights along with a mean touring spoiler. The olive green paint flaunted a gold pearl, not fighting for attention over a genuine tan leather interior. The boys at SRF and Unique transport really impressed us with the trimmings. We hope to see this ride running soon as the owner has a taste for speed.

We are sure that auto refinishing shops in Trinidad can give their foreign counterparts a good run for their money. The quality of paint applications we saw at SouthEx from big names such as Waddies Paints and Bhola's Motorworks. One particular Skyline caught our attention at Waddies booth. The all-motor monster sat on huge 18" wheels and sported an intercooler loving front scoop which was shaped and plastic welded from the stock urethane bumper. We like to see these "one-offs" since so many cars tend to sport the same kit - it also showed form following function as the owner wanted to cool things down from the intake. Waddies also showed off a baby blue antique Opel and an interestingly customised old model Prelude among others.

The crew at Bhola's Motor Works definitely know how to put on a display, with pebble stone floor, neons and an animated display of their workshop shown through two computer monitors. One car that definitely got alot of attention at the trade show camped out under Bhola's tent: a fly yellow Supra sporting a wild, big mouth style ground effects kit. With a need for speed we can sometimes give way for creature comforts, with this we had a good drool over the Range Rover in this booth - hey, if we had that as the family grocery getter we wouldn't mind!!

Moving from the paint shops to the car audio shops, who were the true crowd pleasers at SouthEx, we caught up with three of the more popular names in the industry: Sound Extreme, Barely Legal Customising and Ghandi's Auto. As usual we awe at the amount of speakers they fit into their cars. The trade show provided a prelude to the audio competition taking place the following weekend in Chaguanas. So without the official competition, there was still some crowd pleaser "bang-outs" going on throughout the heavily attended weekend of SouthEx.

With a week of activities, climaxing to a well attended weekend, SouthEx left much to be desired as Trinidad's "largest" tradeshow. We hope to see more entrepreneurs in the e-commerce and online industry and definitely in the auto arena in 2001.