Episode 10
When Cars and Kicks Collaborate: The Crossover Between Our Favorite Hobbies
In this episode of The Cars and Kicks Show, Jacques Slade, Erik Valdez, and Nick Engvall discuss the intersection of cars and sneakers. They talk about the recent collaboration between Porsche and Puma to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Porsche 911 Turbo. They also discuss the trend of wearing merchandise from events or brands that people haven't actually experienced, and how it relates to the car and sneaker world. They touch on early collaborations between the sneaker and automotive world, such as the Reebok Insta Pump Fury Carbon Fiber and the Lotus Formula One team shoes. They also mention recent collaborations like the Nissan x New Balance 327. Overall, they express their excitement for the blending of the car and sneaker worlds and the potential for future collaborations. The conversation explores the differences between European and American car culture and the lack of sneaker and automotive collaborations in the US. It mentions the collaboration between Crocs and NASCAR, as well as the partnership between Puma and European car brands. The hosts discuss the functional design of driver-centric shoes like the Puma Speedcat and the history of Nike's involvement in NASCAR. They also touch on the potential for future collaborations with Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari. The episode concludes with a reminder to subscribe to the podcast and follow the hosts on social media.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Random Intro Songs
02:29 Introducing the Cars and Kicks Podcast
02:58 Collaboration between Porsche and Puma
05:47 Wearing Merchandise from Events or Brands You Haven't Experienced
11:38 The Blending of the Car and Sneaker Worlds
18:31 The Evolution of Car and Sneaker Collaborations
23:17 The Mainstream Appeal of Car and Sneaker Collaborations
28:29 Looking Forward to Future Collaborations
30:01 Excitement for the Blending of the Car and Sneaker Worlds
30:08 NASCAR and Car Collaborations
31:05 The Kobe Bryant and Nike Aston Martin Collab
32:29 Ken Block and DC Shoes
33:25 European Car Culture vs. American Car Culture
36:14 The Association Between K-Swiss and Gang Culture
38:15 Puma's European Car Collaborations
44:18 Nike's Involvement in NASCAR
48:15 The Difference Between European and American Car Culture
51:47 Crocs and NASCAR Partnership
56:12 Conclusion and Call to Action
Get in touch: carsxkicksshow@gmail.com
All of the links you need: https://www.carsxkicks.com
The Cars and Kicks Show is hosted by:
Jacques Slade is a multifaceted creator that explores the world of footwear and sports through the lens of culture. Through sneakers and golf, Jacques has cultivated an industry leading voice in the industry that can be seen online and on television. Or he is just an idiot. The jury is still out on that.
Erik Valdez is a husband, father, actor, producer, and creator, whose passion and knowledge for cars is unmatched. You might have seen him on shows like General Hospital, Graceland, or Superman & Lois. He’s driven in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge, the Baja 1000, and the number of cars he’s owned would rival the how collections of many sneakerheads.
Nick Engvall is a consultant and creator who helps brands make more authentic connections with their customers. His obsession with cars and sneakers both toe the line of unhealthiness that is best described as, overly passionate. If he’s not recording podcasts, he’s probably at the burrito shop or chasing down ocean sunsets.
Transcript
Yeah. Three, two, yeah, yeah. What up, up, what up, what up? Welcome to the Cars and Kicks podcast. I am Jacques Slade. I got a new intro for you guys. I've been working on this one. Kind of low key. Been in my Ableton Live era with this one. So it's more like...
Cars and kicks and planks. Cars and kicks and planks. Cars and kicks and planks. Car, car, car, car, car, car, car, planks. Yes, perfect sound effects.
Erik Valdez (:There we go.
Nick (:man, I was not prepared for that one.
Jacques Slade (:Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to Cars and Kicks everybody. This is the show where we talk about cars and we talk about kicks and we also make up random intro songs. Obviously, if you've been watching the show.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, no joke, for those of y 'all listening, we were literally naked record and Jacques was like, shit, I gotta come up with a song. So that was straight off the dome, which makes it that much more special. So thank you for blessing us with that.
Jacques Slade (:Amazing stuff, amazing stuff. I am Jacques Slid. Go ahead, Nick.
Nick (:The craziest part is, I was just gonna say the craziest part is every time I'm completely not expecting whatever style Jacques comes up with. That's what the best part about it is. It's like you think he's going one way, but then he adds something completely different to his repertoire.
Jacques Slade (:Hahaha!
Erik Valdez (:man.
Jacques Slade (:I should, I should stockpile these things. So I'm ready. Yeah. Welcome to the show everyone. I am Jacques Slade. I am the sneaker guy on the show learning more about cars. It's not that I don't know anything about them. I'm just here to learn more about them. And I'm joined by two fabulous co -hosts. These guys really make the show go again. I'm here just to talk about the sneaker side of things, but these guys bring the meat of the show. I'm
Erik Valdez (:You really should.
Jacques Slade (:I'm the dessert. am the cookie. I'm the ice cream. These guys are the meats and potatoes for per se. Eric, let them know what you're doing. What's going on.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, I'm Erik Valdez. I am the resident car guy on the Cars and Kicks thing. Not to say that I don't know anything about sneakers, but I do not know anything compared to these two here. So I chat up a bit about the car stuff. They bring in the kick stuff. Nick keeps us glued together. So, Nick, that's a toss to you, my man.
Jacques Slade (:Well played.
Nick (:Yeah, just a fan of cars, a fan of kicks and a fan of talking to these guys about both of those subjects. And, I think, today's going to be a good show. We've got actually kind of like the perfect marriage of cars and kicks kind of kicked us off earlier this week. So. Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Yes indeed.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yes. I'll let you, actually I'll let you intro this one, Eric. You did the reel on the Cars and Kicks show Instagram that kind of let people know what was going on. So I'll let you kind of lead us into this one.
Nick (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:I did, yeah. First and foremost, I got talked into doing that green screen reel thing. I'm a late adopter to social media technology. yeah, y 'all talked me into it. But no, it was fun. That was kind of cool thing that came out of nowhere, that Puma -Porsche collab celebrating Porsche's 50th anniversary of the 911 Turbo. And I do have to give credit where credit's due. My buddy Jeff kind of
Jacques Slade (:Yeah! Woohoo!
Erik Valdez (:gave me the hat tip to him for giving me the tip on all of this stuff that launched. He's a big automotive journalist. He co -founded Hooniverse. He works for Auto Traders. So Jeff, if you're listening, thank you so much for sending that stuff my way and allowing us to get that news out there to our Cars and Kicks family in a timely manner. yeah, that was pretty dope, man. mean, we've talked off air quite often about this when we were.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:starting the podcast before we even started about the world's melding, the cars and kicks melding from motorsports or just from a cultural standpoint in the automotive world and throughout history when they've collabed, what they've collabed on, et cetera. And yet we haven't quite touched on any of those collabs just yet. So this Porsche Puma announcement this week is a nice natural segue into this week's episode.
Nick (:Yeah, absolutely.
Jacques Slade (:And the cool thing about it for me is like all of the details that they pay attention to for this collab. Cause it's not just here's a sneaker that's painted whatever the Porsche color is and there's your car. Like there's a lot more details going into it for instance, like there's only 911 pair of each shoe that's going to release and
It's actually going to drop. think where is it? I was looking at nine. It's not at 9 -11. Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:August 29th at 9 -11, yeah, Central European Standard Time, which is, love those little details like you, yeah, it's awesome.
Jacques Slade (:Like it makes you think about like the care that Porsche puts into their cars. Like they're putting that and you know, I don't know if it was a push from Porsche or if it was a push from Puma, but to carry those details over into the design and the story of the sneakers.
Nick (:Yeah, and I think...
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, I feel like it was definitely a Porsche push with the 911 thing and they, know, as Nick can attest, and I'm sure he's about to enlighten us, but that is Porsche has always been very, very detail oriented. I think it comes from their German roots. Germans are extremely great at manufacturing things to the finest level of precision, the cars being, you know, being one of those things. But yeah, go ahead, Nick.
Nick (:Yeah, totally.
Nick (:I'm sure you, yeah, I'm sure you've heard the, the, the, common phrase for BMWs is the German over engineering. Right. So like they basically just put so much detail into everything, which is what you would do if you could just build a car perfectly. But I think it's, I thought even like the, the, in the fine print of that whole press release was that it's coming with an X they're not going to be packaged in like typical sneaker boxes. They come with an actual like.
Erik Valdez (:Right.
Nick (:shoulder strap bag, leather bag. So it's like, it's a, it's a big deal. You know, like I think, I had a friend, Justin does, Puma just in Puma on Instagram hit me up and I was like, Hey, I have a friend in, in, Shanghai that could get you a pair. And the only downside to those is they were so expensive, you know, like, hopefully, I mean, hopefully I can grab a pair at some point along the way, but I think they were like two, I want to say they were like two 50 or something like that.
Erik Valdez (:I was gonna ask because I didn't see the price in the press release. Maybe I missed it, maybe it's out now, but we didn't talk about the prices. I didn't even see what the price point was gonna be on these. So you're saying 250?
Jacques Slade (:are they?
Erik Valdez (:I mean, it kind of makes sense. You're catering to the Porsche crowd. you know, it is a higher end collab. you know, it and plus it being limited edition, there's some value in that to collectors, whether whether it's sneakerheads or car guys. Like if you've got, you know, a 911 turbo and and let's say, green metallic or whatever, I don't remember what the colorways they're using. There's several different colorways from the 70s.
Nick (:thought that's what it was. Let me look at it, look it up real quick.
Nick (:Totally.
Nick (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:But let's say you really wanted to match your 911 so that you can be that guy at Cars and Coffee on the weekends that matches your car. And I'm saying that not to call anybody out because I've been that guy several times where I match my sneakers to my car. yeah, mean, it appeals to those guys. And I think there's a value in that. So a little bit higher price point makes some sense in that regard.
Jacques Slade (:Ha
Nick (:Totally.
Yeah, I think, I think the collectible nature of it is, like the coolest part of it. Right. Like they, they basically decided to say, okay, we're going to do this for, you know, 10, 12 different markets. You know, that, that inherently like next, you know, we just talked about car week next year at car week. I'll be seeing guys selling those at some of the events. Cause it's like, you're probably not going to get all of them on your own, but they'll show up at other events that, know, like maybe at like, I mean, we don't see it at the.
Jacques Slade (:So I'd go ahead.
Nick (:sneaker conventions as much for the car related shoes, but I feel like there's a big opportunity there.
Jacques Slade (:So our car, I don't know if we talked about this, but our car guys like golf guys where like, I haven't played Pebble Beach, most golf guys won't wear Pebble Beach merch. Our car guys like that where if they don't have a Porsche, they won't wear Porsche merch.
Erik Valdez (:Yes and no. mean, I think there are several people that are aware of a Porsche related t -shirt or something that kind of represents maybe a brand or a mark that they aspire to be a part of or own one day. It's not quite as frowned upon as like the golf world because you're not really front and like in a roundabout way, it's almost the reverse in some situations like in the JDM world. Yeah, you were nobody really wore a lot of like
Honda or Acura shirts. There was like Honda Racing and this and that, but most of it was the aftermarket stuff, the HKS, the Greddy, the tuner merch that they would wear to the car meets to basically imply, you know, hey, I'm heavy into the modification world. My car may not have normal shit under the hood. And so I've got a T -shirt because, you know, I got a big T88, you know, turbo and all this other stuff from Greddy, blah, blah, blah.
I think you used to see that in now like kind of on the flip side a lot of the really high net worth individuals Show up in black t -shirts and jeans and they're not wearing much of the the merch that you know They coincides with the cars that they probably own Whereas some guys, you know, I I think it's I think it's it's it's I don't know I'm not gonna I personally am NOT gonna
wear some sort of merch say to to use your point like for a racing circuit that I haven't been to like a golf course that I haven't been to I'm not going to wear that hat or that shirt. I probably wouldn't wear a shirt from a racing circuit I haven't been to now. Am I going to draw the line at circuits that I've only raced on now if I visited to be a spectator at a circuit. Yeah I'm going to wear that shirt kind of like buying merch at a concert. I'm not going to wear a band shirt from band I have never seen personally. That's just my my own thing. So
I think it goes that way in the car world a little bit, but yeah, it's interesting for sure.
Jacques Slade (:interesting.
Nick (:Now I know Eric wasn't really referring to me and about the high net worth individuals wearing plain black t -shirts, but since we leaned into that, I will say that like, I'm one of those people that like, pretty much show up to events like very plainly dressed. Like Jacques probably remembers when I used to go to the sneaker conventions, it'd be really rare if I wore something that was like maybe outlandish. I'm trying to hide amongst the crowd more than anything and just observe.
But like to your question Jacques, I've probably been to, you know, I'm probably getting close to 200 races over the course of my lifetime that I've been to. I've probably been to another a hundred to 200, like car shows, events, that kind of thing. You know, like this is like,
Jacques Slade (:I lost you. don't know if that's me. there you are. You're back. Yeah, I can hear you now. Sorry.
Nick (:Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah. I mean, I've probably been to, you know, I'm probably pushing 500 car events, automotive events in my lifetime at least. And I have. Merch from so many of those things because I bought it as a, you know, token to have that memory that I can go back to. And for me, like, I'm so into all of it that, you know, like I have McLaren gear. don't own a McLaren.
You know, maybe one day, but like I have Porsche gear that, know, I have Porsche shoes, like, you know, all that kind of stuff. And that's just like a very small entry point to Eric's point. You know, the, JDM stuff I've got tons of that stuff too, because it really is like a. For me, it's less about like people knowing like what I'm into. I don't really care if, if, if that's what it is, I want to, I want the conversation, you know, I want you to see something I'm wearing and be like,
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm.
Nick (:I need to talk to that guy. He's got something interesting on and sometimes that's just a pair of shoes, you know, like I'll share this pair kind of this is like one of those low key shoes. This is a Puma McLaren shoe. So I'm not sure why that's not working. There we go. There we go.
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm.
Erik Valdez (:because Nick's using his fancy camera today. he's got a rack focus to the logo there.
Jacques Slade (:Yes, yes.
Erik Valdez (:He he he.
Nick (:So I don't want to, I don't want to get too far into the formula one sneakers because that's a whole deep dive for us that we want to get into in a future episode. But like that particular Puma shoe, was a team edition shoe. Like you couldn't get that with the McLaren branding. was before these collabs started happening. A lot of people in the sneaker world will know a shoe like this. You know, this is the Michael Schumacher, Barry Sanders zoom turf 96. This is a retro from,
Erik Valdez (:yeah, that's definitely a future pod.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, yeah.
Nick (:probably 2014. This is what the original looked like. Had a Michael Schumacher's signature on there. I got, I got two more. Yeah. You got to watch for this one.
Erik Valdez (:he's busting out the OGs. For those of y 'all that are just listening to the pod, you gotta tune in. Go to the YouTubes on this one, because Nick is bringing some heat.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah!
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:This is the Michael Schumacher. this is the super zoom. is a shoe you hardly ever see, but this is another Ferrari inspired colorway. And I think like those kinds of things are like, there's a deep dive there for us to get into. I think that there's a lot of, there's a lot of people that probably don't even know this exists. And they, lot of people that are fans of motor sports, fans of cars in general that land on these like releases, like we're talking about with the Porsche, right?
Jacques Slade (:Crazy.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Nick (:you know, Puma has done that with BMW, with Ferrari. I've got some, I've got some of those shoes because I just thought, that's kind of interesting. You know, Puma actually made like a specific silhouette for Ferrari that I'll share down the road. I didn't have time to get to storage for this episode, but it's a crazy shoe because like they'd never made it for anybody else. It's not available in any other style. It's three color, two color ways that were a Ferrari branded Puma shoe, you know, probably four or five years ago. It was crazy expensive. And I happen to.
Erik Valdez (:You
Nick (:happened upon them at a, at an outlet on clearance randomly. And I was like, well, I'm never seeing these in person, so I'm not going to not get them, you know? So.
Erik Valdez (:Wow.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah. That's cool, man. Yeah, go ahead, Jacques.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. The reason I asked, because I've been thinking about that a lot myself, because I'm guilty of it myself. So I've played a couple of nice courses and I leave those tags on my bag. And it's kind of like a little bit of a flex. It's a flex for sure. And I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed that I'm that vain. But I also noticed it.
Erik Valdez (:It is.
Jacques Slade (:But I noticed that like with golf guys, have a couple of friends that golf and like I went to Masters and I bought them some gear and a lot of them haven't worn it because they're like, I've never been. So I don't want to, I don't want to wear, I don't want to wear the gear. And I was like, I like, and I get it because I think it's also, that's also like kind of like the way another, like a golfer flex. Like if I wear a master shirt, it's because I've probably been to Masters.
Or if I wear a Pebble Beach shirt is because I've been to Pebble Beach or if I've been to players or even with, even with Eric and you'll know this probably more, even with production guys, you'll see, you'll know, like they'll wear like Sochi Olympics gear to let you know, like I worked on the Olympics. Yeah. Like I was at the Olympics. I just think it's so funny. Cause like, that's kind of like their low key flex of just being like, yeah, I was, I was, I was at Sochi and I was a cameraman at Sochi.
Erik Valdez (:Right.
Erik Valdez (:Mm
Erik Valdez (:They were there, 100%.
Erik Valdez (:huh. You know, but yes, ask me.
Nick (:Yeah. Eric, Eric, let me ask you something real quick. So that golf tag thing makes me think of the car world, the racing world of cars, the guys that take their cars to the track. You see a ton of it around here at Laguna Seca because people, people to your point shock, you'll see people that have taken their cars to the track and actually driven on the track, get little outlines of the tracks they've driven and they'll put that either on their car or on their toolbox. Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:And it's crazy to see that.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, I knew that's what you're doing, the little silhouettes, yep.
It's, yes, so kind of back to what Nick said, Jacques, I think you are in the clear for these flexes, right? Because whether you've played there or not, you've been to a lot of these places and it goes back to the conversation. If somebody's like, man, you were at the Masters? Yeah, I host a show for a PGA Tour channel and, know, and so it's, but yeah, sure, it's a flex, but man.
Jacques Slade (:Wow, interesting.
Nick (:This
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:Right? Yeah, right? Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:It's one to be proud of and the whole point of it is not really a braggadocious thing, it's a conversation thing. That's why we get into this stuff, right? At least that for me, I got into cars because I love them, but I also like the camaraderie. I like to be able to share stories with like -minded individuals and talk about the different things. I I can't grab it from here, but I'll try to grab it at some point in this pod, not sneaker -related or whatever, but I still have one of my helmets that I wore.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Right.
Jacques Slade (:Mm
Erik Valdez (:And it's still got, I'll take it to the go -kart track here locally when I go run go -karts and it still has the two tech stickers on it from the Baja 1000, the Baja 500, because that's the helmet I wore in those two races. And so to your average person, they might think, well, this is jackass and you know, with Baja stickers on his helmet, okay. But if you come ask me about it, I'm going to tell you, yeah.
Nick (:Yeah, that's awesome.
Erik Valdez (:I actually competed in both of those events and this is the helmet that I wore. So it all goes back to the conversation, you know, and I think that is completely okay if you're doing it for those purposes, you know what I mean?
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:Yeah. So I, it sounds like we need to get Jacques submerged. That just says coming to you live from St. Andrews. you know, cause then he doesn't have to worry about anybody else wearing it either. Right. Like you only got like eight other people in the world that get to do that. So
Jacques Slade (:Gotcha, gotcha.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Hahaha!
Erik Valdez (:That's right.
huh. huh.
Jacques Slade (:That's crazy talk, crazy. Anyway, back to the collab. Sorry to throw us on that tangent, but I just thought about that and I was just wondering if that was a thing that exists in the car world. If you haven't been to Daytona 500 and you wear a Daytona 500 shirt, are you kind of like, is that frontin' or is that like, yeah, he likes Daytona 500.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Nick (:I think there's a little bit of that that happens though, right? Just naturally because especially as like style trends evolve, know, we see a lot of like young kids wearing, every once in a while I'll get, I'll get a little frustrated and see somebody that's, know, 12, 15 years old, the kid wearing a deftones t -shirt or, know, something like that where I'm like, you have no idea what you're wearing right now. Like this is my hometown band, you know, like, yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Ahem.
Erik Valdez (:Ye
Jacques Slade (:Hahaha!
Erik Valdez (:You know what, that's another little tangent and then I promise to get us back on track here, but that is so like my son who's six, you know, he's in first grade and he's got band shirts, know, Nirvana and Foo Fighters and this and that, but I will not let him wear them to school unless, until he's listened to the music and can actually like name some of the songs and stuff. And if it's a band he doesn't care about, then I'm not gonna make him wear the shirt, but you know, he and I have also been to now seven concerts.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:And it's kind of one of our things. And we always get some sort of merch from there, whether it be a, you know, they don't make a lot of kids shirts, but he's got a giant head so I can get him, you know, caps and he can wear the hats and stuff. But that's I'm starting him early with that whole, know, if you're going to wear it, you got to be able to talk about it type of thing. Either you're a fan because you went to a concert or you at least know something about the shirt you're wearing in the band or the car or the whatever you're representing. So to get us back on track, talking about the collabs and everything here, I think
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, that's sick.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:You know, a lot of this stuff has flown under the radar for years. And, you know, there's been a big crossover. That's why we started this podcast between, you know, cars and kicks. But there are a lot of sneakerheads that will buy into the hype or the exclusivity that may not know anything about the collaboration between, you know, say Puma and McLaren or whatever. And I think kind of you touch on this point a little bit, Nick, just a second ago. We're starting to see stuff like this become more mainstream, like you walk into
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Urban Outfitters or whatever and there's like McLaren, you know, F1 team merch now or Abercrombie and Fitch or Hollister. They're all doing these branded things and there's a lot of kids wearing this up and I'm not going to hate on it because look, it brings more awareness to the things that we love. But 90 % of those kids wearing that can tell you nothing about what's on the shirt. It's just kind of what's cool right now, you know? And I think with the collab of the
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:automotive brands and sneakers throughout the years. I think early on it was kind of cool to be, you know, low key and under the radar and demure to use this whole TikTok hype thing that's of the moment that probably won't even be of the moment by the time this podcast comes out, because that's how social media works. you know, there's there's some throughout history. obviously, Nick has probably every collab ever made between what he's got there and in storage.
Nick (:you
Jacques Slade (:Ha ha ha ha.
Erik Valdez (:Some of it has been pretty front and center, hyped up stuff, and some of it's been so low key that I didn't even recognize that it was a collaboration or whatever. So going all the way back, what are some of the first, now this is a question to both y 'all, but what are some of the first standout collabs between the sneaker and the automotive world?
Jacques Slade (:Gosh, I'll let you handle that one, Nick, because you probably know better than me.
Nick (:Well, just to touch on one thing you said, I, my hope is that, you know, like those t -shirts that, that people pick up at a, you know, like whether it's a vintage one from a flea market or, you know, something from urban outfitters, my hope is that getting something like that, whether it's a band tee or a McLaren tee or whatever, hope that's a kind of like a gateway drug to the actual sport or the, or the band that they pick up. Cause to me, that's, that's like the way things have shifted from, you know,
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm.
Nick (:Throughout our lifetime, right? Like it used to be that you could never get band teas. Now you can get, mean, I've bought, I have two pocket ice cube t -shirts from target. You know, it's like ridiculous how that works. But like when I was in high school, not to be like going back in the day, but like, had to like hunt to get a Tupac t -shirt when I was in high school, like it was difficult to find and I paid way too much money for it. And you know, like I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna not have it though. You know, like I just, he was, he's my guy. Like, you know,
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Right.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:stuff on the wall albums always out that kind of stuff shoes on display. And I think that's like the really interesting piece to where we're at now with these collabs is like there's, have the full width, the full breadth of these. Of what sneakers can be. Right. You have stuff like that Puma shoe that I just showed that's a McLaren shoe, super low key. You have to be very observant of formula one to even know that that shoe exists. You have to be very
diligent to even get your hands on that pair. Like they don't pop up very often. There's a few collaborations that have happened like that as well. That like, I think, you know, if you think of like the way that people chase that exclusivity, one of the ways that I chase exclusivity without spending crazy money is actually finding the shoes that are only available to team employees, race car drivers, like athlete, you know, like a lot of these shoes are designed specifically for the teams.
Erik Valdez (:Mm
Jacques Slade (:Mmm.
Erik Valdez (:Mm
Nick (:Cause the teams need, you know, if you're a formula one team, need hundreds of sneakers for your people and you want everybody to have the same uniform. So that's kind of an interesting piece that, that is a little bit low key, but like kind of evolving as we speak, you know, like a lot of these teams are having full on collabs, know, like I've got some case with McLaren shoes that came out last year.
Jacques Slade (:for your team, Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, think Hey, Swiss has the McLaren collab now. I think they're like the official like sponsor or whatever. However, I don't even know. Is that, it like official sponsor? Are they sponsors? Are they official footwear? Is it like the NFL where it's like the official footwear provider of the kind of thing? okay. Okay.
Nick (:Yeah.
Yeah.
Nick (:There. Yeah. Yep. That's what it is. Yeah. It's like the official footwear provider. So I think going back to your question, I know I got off on a tangent there. The earliest of like collabs with sneakers kind of happened off the rate, like unofficially, right? Like I pulled this pair out. I think I might've shown this on this on the show before, but this is, Reebok insta pump fury carbon fiber and the gold.
Erik Valdez (:of McLaren,
Nick (:Which is a Lotus formula one team from 10, 15 years ago now, but like that's kind of like classic Lotus racing colors. And they, they did this. They did. have a silver arrows shoe and a Ferrari shoe up there in that same, same model, but that was 2012 or something. It wasn't an official partnership. know, formula one wasn't big enough in the U S at that time.
You know, formula one was, is huge outside of the U S but it really took a long time for it to evolve to the point where it's at now. And I think that's kind of the, the first that stands out in my mind was that, you know, there's a few others that have happened in recent years. Like, there was some Gulf inspired Nike SB dunks that came out, you know, that's an easy one to call out. I've got to, yeah, I've got the Magnus Walker, Nike dunks, know, which those things.
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm.
Erik Valdez (:Yep. The Magnus Walker, Nike collab. Yep.
Nick (:Are are like the evolution of the exclusive stuff and even further back, you know, which is for the other episode we'll get into, you know, in the nineties, all these formula one teams had their own shoes manufactured. wasn't a collaboration because they literally went and said, okay, we're Renault. We are going to work with Canon and Williams and you know, whoever else sponsors the team and all those brands will be on the shoes. And that's a really like deep dive.
Type of thing to go into, but that's like the late eighties and early nineties really kind of. Like it was a completely different approach than what it is now. And I think that's the earliest I remember, but it's also one of those things where it really wasn't the sneaker consumer wasn't actively seeking out that connection. Right. It's really hard to hide, hard to find those kinds of shoes because.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:If you weren't a super fan back in the day, you weren't paying attention, you know, like you didn't care about sneakers in 1990. If you did, you cared about a, you know, a Jordan coming out or, or an Air Max or something like that. So, it's, it's really kind of cool to see it spread its wings, so to speak. And I think that's really why we wanted to do this show because it. There's so many aspects of this that are happening that we don't even see throughout, the tip, the typical sneaker media, social accounts and that.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:and one of those, like I wanted to talk about a little bit, but I don't know you guys got a chance to look at it, but, but Nissan, last year, want to say 22 or 20, 23. Partnered with, with new balance to make a three 27. Yeah. Which is the name of one of their cars, right? Like that, that, that is a cool connection. If, if you can have like a authentic as, as like the name, you know, but like,
Erik Valdez (:Mm
Erik Valdez (:kicks.
Yeah. Yep.
Nick (:I don't know. I saw these, but I don't think I saw anybody post about them. Do you guys remember seeing these at all?
Erik Valdez (:I remember seeing a press release on the collab. I've never seen the shoe. don't, I mean, I don't, couldn't tell you what it looks like. So I don't, I don't know. I remember seeing the car with the New Balance logo on the side and that's, that's about it. You know, I'll have to look it up, I guess.
Jacques Slade (:I don't remember her.
Nick (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, I haven't seen the shoes. I mean, it's based on that new silhouette. forgot what it's called. The 327. Yeah, the 327. Yeah, but I don't know if it was just the car or were there actual sneakers or was it just,
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, with the giant in.
Nick (:327, yeah.
Nick (:Yeah, there are actuals actual sneakers too, in that color, like basically a silk, like light bluish silver with like gray accents that they released for that. And it only, I think it only came out in Japan. It was kind of like a, a region specific thing, but you know, I think that was the first time I saw something that was like, Whoa, this can be really big at some point, you know, like this could be a normal thing that every brand can, can do their version of really.
Jacques Slade (:Interesting. I didn't know they did an actual sneaker. cool.
Erik Valdez (:Hmm, that makes sense.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, that would be sick. That would be sick. I was going to say like early guys are talking like I'm the F the new F one guy. Like, so I got into F one because of the show drive to survive. Like the Netflix show got me into it. I had heard of F one before, you know, I'd seen stuff here and there, but that was the first time I was invested. I would say like the show got me invested in the sport and then into the people of the sport. And so like, I'm a new watcher. And so now.
Like I'm getting more into this stuff. to have like K -Swiss sent me the McLaren shoes. So I was like, okay, that's really cool. That's super dope. Like, yes, yes, yes. I was like, I'm a Toto Wolf fan now. Like I'm like me and Toto, like I'm like, I want to see Toto tear some shit up. I see Toto tear some shit up. Like, I love that guy. Like, can you be my uncle Toto? Like that's the dude. So like now I'm totally into it. And so obviously I want to see the blending of.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah
Jacques Slade (:those worlds of like my sneaker world and the F1 world and see where they can take those things. And I know that's all for a separate episode, but to see, like we see it in the sneaker world a little bit with Jordan because we have the motorsport, the motorsport sixes, the NASCAR, and then like the 14 is inspired by the Ferrari, which Eric, you know, you and I worked on. Yeah, yeah. So like that kind of.
Erik Valdez (:Nassau.
Erik Valdez (:NASCAR partnership too now.
Nick (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:That's how we all met. Yeah.
Nick (:Yeah. Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:brought cars into the conversation a little bit, but it wasn't necessarily a collab in the sense of what we're talking about today.
Erik Valdez (:Right. Yeah, I think there's one collab and I was thinking you might mention this, Jock, because you're such a fan of this person, but there's one that comes to mind for me that I don't remember when this was, but it's when a certain basketball player jumped over a certain car. And I believe this was with a hyperdunk and it was, am I right? It was a Nike, Kobe, Aston Martin collab.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:And that was an official collab, right? That was, I don't think they'd made a whole lot of those, but that was a legit official thing. That wasn't like just an obscure commercial. They literally did these shoes, right? Like as a limited release.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, that was the the Kobe one, Kobe two. What was it? The Kobe one.
Nick (:No, it's a, it's like Kobe. I think it's the five and the hyper dunk, right?
Erik Valdez (:I think so. Yeah. Yeah, that to me.
Jacques Slade (:The five and the hyperdog, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah, because it's silver. I have the jacket.
Nick (:Yeah. Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Man, see I knew you would. Like, I'm surprised I had to bring that up, Jacques.
Nick (:See, if you want to see Jacques collection and be reminded of Jacques collection, just go back a couple episodes. did an episode called the best collection of cars and kicks ever. This is all stuff that came straight from the walls behind Jacques that he just forgot he even had, you know?
Erik Valdez (:That's how immense his collection is, is he just forgets he's got this stuff.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, shame on me, shame on me for real. Yeah.
Nick (:I'm guilty of that too.
Erik Valdez (:But no, that to me was kind of, it wasn't the first I don't think, but that was one of the first kind of all out collabs where there was some sort of spectacle attached to it with the commercial attached and then the release of the sneakers and Kobe involved and the manufacturer, Aston Martin as a manufacturer involved in this entire project and I think that was, as far as I can remember anyway, that was one of the first
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:big collabs that I remember. know there was some other stuff like RIP to Kim Block, but he was big into melding these two worlds with DC and Subaru, I think, when he first started in rally and started with Gymkhana One, DC was the supplier for the Subaru rally team, I think, right? Is that right, Nick? I know you can check me on that.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:Yeah. I mean, he's probably the first, you know, probably the first person to really bring those two worlds in a very like official partnership kind of way, because he was a, you know, founder of DC shoes, along with, you know, a couple other guys, but basically like carried that brand for, you know, two decades. And that brand allowed him to go into the, to the crazy racing, the gym, Conner, the rally stuff that he did because DC shoes was so successful, you know? And I think that's.
Erik Valdez (:Mm
Nick (:We obviously have to do a full episode deep dive into his kind of story because he's just an incredible human being. But what he did for like the two things that we're talking about on this podcast all the time is completely immeasurable, but it's also like kind of low key. You know, the Kobe thing, like you said, is, like made the mainstream, you know, kind of media, so to speak. And I think what, what is really interesting to think about is.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:You know, the other kind of talking point that we had on, our notes is like all these Puma, you know, kind of collaborations with BMW and Ferrari and Porsche and all of that very European. Centric shoes, right? We haven't really had the Americanized sneaker as a part of like the automotive or the racing world, or even like the collectible racing world, you know? And I think that Ken Block is kind of the first person that did that.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Mm
Nick (:And honestly, like, I don't think, I, I don't think people really understand that that even existed. You know, like I, I, I have a parent storage. but he did that for a long time, you know, like he, you know, monster energy was his car sponsor was his, his rally or Jim Cano sponsor. And they ended up doing monster energy DC, DC shoes, which is super unheard of, know, like, but yeah, I I'm.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:wow.
Nick (:I'm just kind of realizing like how globally we've seen like hotspots of this happen moments in time where a flash and it happens and it's like, that's cool. But never in a continuous place that it can grow into something bigger until now, you know, we're, really starting to see that, right? We've, know, to Jacques point about the case Swiss that they sent him, you know, those are, those are the start of it, right? Like you're bringing back shoes that are.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:Literally like the case of case with classic, which I have like from the McLaren pack. That is like one of the most iconic sneakers ever. Like if you were in California in the nineties, you had case with classics or you, you wanted case X case Swiss classics. they were like, next level popular, you know, when I was, you know, probably like young teens or early, early to mid teens or whatever. And I think that's like really, really.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yep. Are you wanted? Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Mm
Nick (:something that a lot of these brands can kind of tie in that nostalgia with if they, if they did have those moments, because now all of a sudden you can say, not only is this all white case Swiss classic, a nostalgic shoe for you. we threw a little bit of carbon fiber and a McLaren logo on it too, and made it super premium. And it's like, well, I definitely need that pair then.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah. Fun fact for you guys about the K -Swiss. If you lived in certain neighborhoods in LA, you couldn't wear K -Swiss. It's the association and what they... I don't know if it's just like urban legend of what the K -Swiss stood for. In gang culture, the word slob is a negative word for the Bloods.
Erik Valdez (:Mm
Erik Valdez (:The Association.
Erik Valdez (:for the bloods. Yup.
Jacques Slade (:And so they had, changed K Swiss to kill a slob when I see a slob. And so if you were, yeah. So you couldn't wear K Swiss in certain neighborhoods, the case was classic, even though it was super popular. But if you were K Swiss in the wrong neighborhood, people would take offense to it and you know, the resulting conversation. So to say.
Erik Valdez (:Woo!
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Wow, I did not know that. when you said fun fact about K -Swiss, you being the hip hop head, I thought you were gonna throw it to the back in the days when I went that whole line about what was it, Pumas with the fat laces and it was either that or K -Swiss. Like I thought that's where you were going. I didn't think you were gonna take us all the way to like gang culture level. You got the, there really was. That's right.
Nick (:conversation.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:Yeah. Yep.
Nick (:There was a lot of that nuanced stuff back then too. Cause like you couldn't wear British nights, you know, like, like that's a, that's a company that like, we'll probably talk about at some point because I do think they had like some interesting partnerships. have to research a little bit, but yeah, they were, they were a big deal for awhile, you know,
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, couldn't wear British nights either, nope.
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm
Erik Valdez (:They had a moment.
Yeah, they were.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, they're bigger. You guys mentioned something earlier that I was curious about. Nick, you kind of leaned into it a little bit about how it always seems like Puma is doing these car collabs and it's like a very European thing. What's the, from your guys' perspective as car guys, what's the difference between European car culture and American car culture? And why would Puma, which is
tip, you know, most, well, a German brand be so ingrained into that as opposed to, you know, a Nike or an Adidas or, whoever. Well,
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm.
Erik Valdez (:It's a, man, that's a whole episode in and of itself. Like European car culture and American car culture could not, man, I can't get a sentence out today, could not be more different or further apart. And European car culture is really deeply rooted in motorsport. Whereas American car culture goes back to like, I think it, you know, most of it probably started
Jacques Slade (:Hahaha
Erik Valdez (:around the hot rodder era. in our version of motorsport back then was drag racing, but it wasn't sanctioned drag racing. It was just guys souping up old hot rods and going out and finding some back street in Pomona and seeing how quick they could get. No, for real, that's the birthplace of drag racing is Pomona, the mean streets of Pomona. Yeah, and so that was like, it was more about the...
Jacques Slade (:Ha
Nick (:Yeah. Yep. That's. Yep.
Jacques Slade (:Amazing.
Erik Valdez (:Again, the camaraderie and the wrenching on your own cars and just kind of like, you know, and it evolved from the hot rodding into just the muscle car era. And it was all about like the, it's kind of like Americans, you know, are we're stereotypically the rest of the world, very brash and brute and, and loud and stuff. And that was our car culture. Whereas Europeans, you know, it's, guess, again, you can go on all these tangents, but like it's America is like American football. Europe is like soccer or football. And so there's this like,
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:bit of, I don't know, maybe it's slightly more refined over there, but it's also rooted in motorsports. So lot of the folks in the car world over there, like just, you could have it really beat whatever it was aesthetically car, but it's cause it got used. It got taken to the track. got, you know, everybody wanted to be, if they weren't playing soccer or.
football, they wanted to be a Formula One driver or a rally driver or a touring car driver over there. And so it was less about the kind of scene and be seen part of the scene as it is in the States. And it was more about the actual driver element of it. So, you know, we've got I can go down a whole rabbit hole here, but I love kind of the history of car.
Jacques Slade (:Got it.
Erik Valdez (:culture, especially in America because it's so diverse, man. Like you have the hot -rider culture and the muscle car era that I just talked about. like low riders, that's an all Latino -American thing, but it started here in LA and El Paso, Texas where I grew up, where the mecca of low riding back in the day. You go to Japan nowadays and low riding is massive. It's as big as drifting was when drifting first started in Japan and everything.
Nick (:Yeah.
Nick (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:And so we've had all these little subcultures in America of the car world that just make it so much more nuanced. I won't say it's better than European car culture. It's just different. Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Just different.
Nick (:Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that's like the beauty of, of car culture in America to me. Right. Like I grew up wanting, you know, a Honda, but I also grew up wanting, you know, Dayton's on that Honda 87 Honda Accord was my first like drivable car. And like the guy down the street from me, had, had one, he had crown wire wheels, but like had, by the time I graduated high school, he was two years ahead of me. He was in the shop class.
Jacques Slade (:Hahaha!
Nick (:And I was like, I'm going to learn how to install hydraulics. Like that's all I ever wanted to do back then. And, know, like my cousin got into like kind of the performance side of, of Honda's around that time too. And like that kind of evolves in like, there was this. Interesting time where, you know, low rider magazine was making low rider Euro magazine in the nineties and early two thousands. And it was really like this hodgepodge of multiple, you know, car cultures kind of combined. And I think that kind of is how.
Erik Valdez (:That's right. Yeah.
Nick (:You know, we, we've moved for a long time. Things were very, very separate, right? But I think what happens is like people realize like, it's kind of like with sneakers, you, you, you might, you might be a diehard air Jordan collector, but like, might be a diehard Sokka knee collector and like, we don't see eye to eye, but we see exactly what we see in each other that we love about the thing we love, you know? And I think that's something that, that is like,
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick (:It's going to be really beautiful as all this kind of comes together. And as we start to see people get creative, because there's so many creative ways to kind of tell these stories that Eric's talking about the, the, you know, the growth of car culture in America is wild. You know, it's just absolutely wild, you know, like, and, it changed the course of America. don't want to get too, too far down this tangent, but like freeways in LA only exists because.
Erik Valdez (:Mm
Nick (:The tire companies and the gas companies got together and shut down the public transportation. Like if you look up that story, it is wild and like cars didn't weren't the thing. Like, know, like even in New York, like cars weren't, you know, like there was things that happened that forced, like we had a, a vacuum subway system back in the twenties or whatever in New York city. And you think about that now and it's like, how's that even possible? But like,
Erik Valdez (:Wow.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Nick (:car culture became such a thing that like we built houses with garages. So people would get not one car, but two, and then it like evolved and evolved and evolved. So all of those things are really fascinating. And I think you're in Eric's point about the European aspect of cars. You see it in the sneakers, the footwear choices are very driver centric. So I don't have a pair in front of me, but I'll put one up on screen for those that are watching, but like,
Erik Valdez (:Wow.
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm.
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm.
Nick (:The, the speed cat, the Puma speed cat is like one of the kind of pinnacle motorsport shoes, right? It's it's a, it's a driver's shoe, but it's also been, you know, basically created with, you know, fire retardant, no max, you know, like all the different variations throughout the years. And that style is not popular in the U S but it has its moments in the U S.
Jacques Slade (:Motorsport shoes, yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Not at all.
Jacques Slade (:Not at all.
Nick (:But in Europe, that's a, that's a very like, could sell that all day, any day. And, you know, that's why the, think we haven't seen the kind of. Convergence of these two worlds on a global scale, like we have with, with others, you know, kind of sneaker creativity, I guess.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, there's a company that a lot of sticker heads probably don't even know. Nick, you probably know this one. But there's a company called Polodi that kind of tried to take the concept of a driver -centric shoe and make it more appealing to mainly the American market so that it didn't look quite like a driver's shoe. Like the Speedcat, again, it's function over form. You've got a kind of a rounded heel cup.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:which allows you to, you know, heel toe a little bit. It's a technique in motor sports and in racing. There's very little soul because when you're driving a car, when you're being, when you're, you know, in a competitive situation, it's almost like wrestling shoes or whatever. You want as little space between the bottom of your feet and the pedals as possible because you'd be surprised like the, the flex of a big toe on a throttle pedal can make a huge difference coming out of a corner as to whether
There's will spin or the car gets sideways or whatever. So the speedcat as Jacques got up on the screen right here, you can see that in the design. Everything about that is functional from a driver standpoint. Now, again, that's not something that Americans, know, you go to cars and coffees and there's going to be some dude that's got something like that on and that's cool. But it's not going to be a mainstream thing or at least it hasn't yet. Some.
Jacques Slade (:Yep.
Erik Valdez (:some kids are gonna bring this out, you know, it's gonna be the new hype thing at some point, I bet, and then we'll see it. But, Polodi, for example, I don't even remember when that launched, they now, like if you go and look at their stuff now, they almost look a bit like 90s skate shoes mixed with driver's shoes, because they're trying to appeal to the actual, like, they want people to wear them off the track, whereas, you know, and not kind of get laughed at or get looked at funny.
Nick (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Hahaha
Erik Valdez (:if you're, you know, if you're not around a racing circuit in America. But it's never really hit mainstream. think I think a lot of like I even, you know, if I'm going to go spend a day at the track or whatever, or if I go to the go -kart track or whatever, I don't I've owned speedcats throughout the years. Some of my racing boots are Pumas just because I like the way they they feel that now. Pines are my favorite racing boots. But I'm not going to wear those to the
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:go -kart track, even though I'm pretty serious. I'm a competitive guy when I get out there, I wear Jordan 1s because they're flat. There's not a ton of cushioning between the bottom of my foot and the pedals, et cetera, but I can rock them and not stand out, so to speak, in any sort of way if I'm away from the racing circuit or whatever.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, the speed cat reminds me of like when I'm in Beverly Hills and I see like the rich European people walking around, like they have on speed cats.
Nick (:Yeah, yeah. think.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Nick (:Yeah. I think we'll, we'll get into this in a future episode, but like, know, the Michael Schumacher Nike shoes that I showed, right? Those are from like 97, essentially. Like the reason why I even have had them out because it came up in conversation this last week with some people around like the trainers of the nineties and. know, like trainers to Americans are like turf trainers and like football, you know, American football and kind of baseball shoes, trainers to Europeans are like just shoes in general, basically that as long as they're not.
Erik Valdez (:Right.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah. Right.
Nick (:Dress shoes. I think that kind of is the biggest attempt that's been made has been with Nike and Michael Schumacher. If you think about like the, what that looked like now, right? That's essentially like someone saying, Hey, Lewis Hamilton, let's do a collab, you know? And he's had his own shoes from Puma. he's had his own like race boots from Puma, the super exclusive stuff. And they've released like, think.
three over the years that were not like super limited, you know, like there was, there's a few super limited pairs, but you wouldn't really think of them as like a casual shoe, right? Like you're getting them as a collector's piece or as a race shoe kind of thing. And I think we'll, we're going to see more of that, know, like that honestly is going to be really interesting with him moving to Ferrari because Ferrari has a
Jacques Slade (:Yeah
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm. A lifestyle brand.
Nick (:Yeah, they're, they're much different than, the rest of the teams for formula one in that sense, I think.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, that's a very valid point because obviously Ferrari as a car manufacturer is iconic and we all know that. But I don't want to misquote this, but there was an article I read a while back and the vast majority of Ferrari's revenue comes from their merch and their lifestyle stuff, not necessarily their automotive sales. so, yeah, so that's why I think this partnership of, you
Jacques Slade (:Wow.
Erik Valdez (:with Lewis moving to Ferrari next season is it's like chess on a whole other level because you've got one of the, know, he's literally arguably the greatest driver of all time. He's numbers wise, you can't argue with that. And he's continuing to, you know, he just came off of a win, you know, recently and he's continuing to do stuff that it's just literally adding to the record books, right? But he's also a fashion icon. He's also, you know,
Jacques Slade (:Yep. Yep.
Erik Valdez (:very well known off the track for his social impact and all of these other things. And to have, and he's also the only black driver to ever compete in Formula One. Now you go all the way back to history and again, we can go down this road. Willie T. Ribbs was the first black driver to ever set foot in a Formula One car. think he tested for, was it Williams, Nick? I'm not sure if you know that, but he never competed in Formula One. Hamilton is the only
Nick (:think so,
Erik Valdez (:You know, the only black driver in that sport ever. And so now you've got like so many things that Ferrari has in their pocket outside of just his talents that they can then leverage. And he can leverage to Hamilton can leverage because he's his own brand. And don't be surprised if he makes more money in the next decade after he retires just because of his partnership with Ferrari, because I think there's a clause in there where it's he's beyond the, you know, the his tenure as a driver.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:because that's dope.
Erik Valdez (:He's an ambassador for Ferrari for an unidentified amount of time. yeah, so it's super dope. Yeah. I know we're gonna wrap things up here pretty quickly, but I wanted to throw y 'all a curve ball on the, you know, we're talking about the collabs and there not been really many big sneaker and automotive collabs in the States versus like Pumas in Europe. The biggest sneaker, I guess, the biggest footwear collab that I can think of.
Jacques Slade (:that's great. That's amazing. That's the way it should be done. That's the way it should be done.
Nick (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:is Crocs. Crocs and NASCAR have a partnership and Crocs and Disney Pixar have a partnership. Now, Lightning McQueen is arguably one of the most famous American icons in motorsports history. So.
Jacques Slade (:Mmm.
Erik Valdez (:I think so. How many piston cups does Lightning McQueen have? So there's your curve ball there. think that's a legit bonafide partnership and collaboration there.
Nick (:Arguably one of the best drivers in history to be honest.
Jacques Slade (:Arguably one of the best driver.
Nick (:You
Nick (:Yeah.
Jacques Slade (:that's legitimately a bonafide collab. You will hear no feedback from me, nothing from me, all go, no notes.
Nick (:But yeah, yeah. Me either. Me either. On the NASCAR note, you know, we'll get into this in a future episode as well, but like I'll leave a little bit of a nugget for people that might not know as much about like the history of Nike and they're like kind of dipping their toes into racing footwear. Nike actually made shoes for a bunch of NASCAR drivers back in the, you know, early two thousands and they actually have like, like shoe. So they, made Michael Schumacher shoes.
for a couple of years, but the shoes were based off of Michael's Fila shoes from the deal prior, which, know, if you've, we'll get into the nuance of all that stuff, but the NASCAR shoes that they've made over the years are really fascinating because at the same time they were kind of taking Fila's design to make it for Michael Schumacher. They also owns the brand starter. So, or they bought the brand starter. So there's this weird kind of gray area.
Erik Valdez (:Mm -hmm.
Nick (:Where the shoes that came with Nike racing compound for the NASCAR shoes. Some of them are co -branded as starter Nike shoes. And some of them have completely starter branding with Nike racing compound. And I have a few of those that I'll have to break out and show people cause they are wild to even think about at this time. You know, like if you think about the nineties and the brands that stand out to you, it's going to be Nike Reebok starter. Those three brands are like.
Jacques Slade (:starter. Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah.
Nick (:The top of the top in the nineties, if you did that now, that's like almost having like a, a Puma, I don't know, champion, not even champion. You know, it's like such a weird connection, right? So it's really interesting. And that, that kind of, you know, it just a full rabbit hole to get into, but, yeah, the, the Crocs look there.
Jacques Slade (:That's crazy.
Jacques Slade (:Such a, yeah, that's such a weird connection. Yeah.
Nick (:We were talking about this on the sneaker history podcast, just this last episode, they are doing what everybody else should have been doing and wants to be doing because the younger generation wants to wear comfortable shoes, regardless of how they look in a lot of ways. That's all they care about is the comfort and Crocs nailed it. And then to do the co -branding that they've done, which is the thing that I love the most about motor sports is just how like, if you step back and think about it, if Eric gets to go race at the Baja,
or whatever, Baja: Erik Valdez (:That's absolutely what happened because I'm not coming out of pocket to sponsor myself to go to go drive. It's expensive to go racing. And that's exactly what happened. I you know, fun fact and this is we're talking about all this, you know, sneaker history and car culture, everything like that and dipping a toe into L .A. and everything. We have got to have my buddy Victor Carillo on the show at some point. So he was my he raced with me in Baja and he was a big part of
Nick (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:how that all got facilitated and helped to get sponsorship with Momo, et cetera. And I had a tequila company called Tierra Noble that helped sponsor and everything. But man, Vic has worked. You talk about sneaker and car culture. Like he helped with like the collab with Mr. Cartoon and Nike when they did that type of stuff. And so he's been merging not just like car culture, but like heavy L .A. car culture, like.
Jacques Slade (:dope. Dope.
Erik Valdez (:into the automotive world and he runs an incredible ad agency and yeah, we'll talk more about him in the future. But Vic, if you're listening, we got to have you on the show, because he's like a legit low rider like Veterano. He's got like all, you know, he's had low riders, he's had Porsches, he's had motorcycles, he's had this and that, but he's a really cool guy. And when it comes to LA, like I'm pretty sure he's got it tattered on him somewhere. He's like LA to the core. So it's dope, man.
Jacques Slade (:L .A. College of
Nick (:You
Jacques Slade (:That's amazing. I love that. Somebody got it. Somebody's got to do a porch with some D's on it. Anyway. All right. right. Before we get here. All right. Thanks everybody. Obviously, Cars and Kicks podcast has a lot going on. There's so much for us to talk about. So if you haven't subscribed, make sure you do that on all of the podcast platforms. The show is cooking. We're cooking with grease and it's getting real hot in here and there's going to be a lot more coming. If you're not watching, check us out on YouTube or check us out on Spotify because you can watch us on Spotify.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, yeah.
Nick (:That's awesome. Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:You
Jacques Slade (:as well. Yeah, we got a lot going on man. And I think you guys really love this show because we love it. I'm Jacques Slade. You can find me at Cousteau all over the web. But more importantly, you can find the show cards and kicks show on Instagram and then cars and kicks everywhere else. But then you could also find my co host Eric or tell them where they can find you.
Erik Valdez (:We do,
Nick (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, Eric Valdez, that's my name, it's at Eric Valdez, E -R -I -K -V -A -L -D -E -Z on the socials. The show is Cars X Kicks on Instagram and Twitter, then it's, well, Cars X Kicks, yeah, it's and, but carsxkicks .com will take you anywhere you want to go. And finally, we got Mr. Nick Engvall over there.
Jacques Slade (:yeah, I said cars and kicks, X, I should say X kicks.
Nick (:Yeah. Nick Ingevall on all the platforms. like they said, just, check us out, leave us a review if you haven't on Apple or hit that star button on Spotify, help us get a little bit more attention on the show. And, yeah, man, this is just a blast doing the show with you guys. So I'm excited to keep it rolling and keep having these conversations. Cause I learn stuff every episode.
Jacques Slade (:Yeah.
Erik Valdez (:we pre
Erik Valdez (:Yeah, it's fun with y 'all. appreciate y 'all listening. Yeah, we're gonna do another one soon. Alrighty.
Jacques Slade (:You, you...
Jacques Slade (:See you guys soon. Peace.
Nick (:Peace.
