I don’t consider myself a sports guy, but I do have a soft spot for 1990s NBA basketball because I watched it a lot as a kid. However, I recently discovered that those two worlds crossed over in a major way: The design of Michael Jordan‘s Air Jordan 14 basketball shoes was inspired by his Ferrari 550 Maranello.
Photo courtesy of Sneaker News
By the time the 14s came out in 1998, the Air Jordan brand had been around for 13 years. High-end cars were nothing new to MJ, either. Over the years, he’s had a 1996 Mercedes-Benz S600 coupe modified by Lorinser, 1993 Corvette ZR-1, 1998 Porsche 911 Turbo S, and more, according to GQ. The crossover was between Jordan’s two passions made perfect sense.
Photo courtesy of Ferrari
The story goes that legendary Nike designer Tinker Hatfield based the look of the 14s on Jordan’s Ferrari 550 Maranello, the front-engine, V-12-powered successor to the Testarossa and its related models, the 512 TR (one of which Jordan also owned) and the F512 M.
Photo courtesy of Nike
In a 2015 interview, Hatfield said, “The Air Jordan 14 was inspired by his Ferrari, a powerful race car that doesn’t sacrifice grace and beauty. So when we developed the story for the 14 based on MJ’s Ferrari, he loved it a lot. He saw himself in it, almost like a metaphor or a symbol of his game.”
Photo courtesy of Nice Kicks
Jordan also put himself in the 14s ahead of time. Tinker gave him a pair of prototype shoes and requested that “His Airness” not wear them, but they ended up on the court during the 1998 NBA finals between the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz. Jordan wore them when he took his immortal “Last Shot” in Game 6 to win his sixth NBA championship — and his final game in a Bulls jersey. Something tells me Hatfield didn’t stay mad for long.
