Shaq's 1964 Chevrolet Impala Boat Photo by Effortless Motors

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It seems to be a rite of passage for those who make it big in sports to lay down some big bucks on a custom vehicle or two. Or twenty. After all, if a person is literally at the top of their game, why drive a whip you might also see at the next street corner?

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But some sports celebrities are actually gearheads, too — and fewer have more gasoline in their veins than Shaquille O’Neal.

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The big man nicknamed “Diesel” has had an incredible roster of vehicles over the years, headlined recently by a 1964 Chevy Impala that works both on land and on the water. What makes so many of them that much more impressive is that he’s typically had to have them modified to fit his gargantuan seven-foot-one-inch frame. Here’s a selection of some vehicles that have darkened Shaq’s garage over the years, but, like members of an NBA team, some of them have since been traded away.

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When one uses the term “boat” to describe a full-size Detroit car from the ‘60s, they’re typically speaking metaphorically, making an analogy to its overall footprint combined with its floaty ride. But Shaq’s newest acquisition (as of July 2026) is a ’64 Impala that is quite literally a boat, a seaworthy version of the classic model that’s an ingrained part of California lowrider culture.

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The crew at a place called Effortless Motors built the thing, inspired by the car Ice Cube drove in Boyz n the Hood. The project started as a challenge issued on Shaq’s birthday this past March (when they handed over to him the keys to a more typical road-bound six-four) and culminated with its recent delivery. 

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Shaq’s Lucid Air Coupe Photo by Copart

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Starting with a 2025 Lucid Air, Shaq commissioned the crew at West Coast Customs to tune a luxury EV sedan into a one-off coupe, lengthening the doors and changing the location of its B-pillar to make the not-small four-seater a two-place ride with generous space. While Lucid’s only ever built the Air as a four-door sedan, this coupe looks great with the two doors fitting its overall profile very well.

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Sadly, the machine has recently shown up at a Copart auction, apparently having suffered a wreck that destroyed its front end. With less than 3,000 miles indicated, chances are it’ll sell for a lot more than the typical crashed Lucid.

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Shaq’s Cybertruck Photo by X

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Wrapped in glossy black material and appended with what was described as a carbon-fibre widebody kit, Shaq’s Cybertruck no doubt had a decidedly menacing look. The impression was amped up by changing the default colour of its forward-facing light bar from white to red, making the thing look even angrier than usual. The front and rear bumpers feature custom ‘CyberDiesel’ decals in Cybertruck font; while a red under-glow matches that light bar mentioned above. Stock wheels were swapped for 26-inch monsters and some off-road meats.

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It’s a running gag for tall people that, in some cars, they’re better off simply removing the driver’s seat and piloting the thing from the rear bench. That’s actually an option sometimes for Shaq, given his seven-foot-one-inch frame and reported size-22-stocking feet.

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Shaquille O’Neal’s custom Ferrari F355 Photo by Bring a Trailer

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That new ‘Vette wasn’t the first time Shaq had commissioned a stretched supercar. Back in the day, he asked a facility to cut into a 1998 Ferrari F355 Spider, a car that eventually surfaced a few years ago on Bring a Trailer and sold for $65,000. More than just adding a bit of sheetmetal to the floorpan, its builders relocated its fuel tank and removed the soft top to make way for aftermarket racing seats of sufficient size to fit Shaq’s frame.

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At auction, just 7,400 miles showed on the clock, with only about a thousand of those added from between the time it was about a year old and the auction over 20 years later. We guess Shaq drove it a decent amount during his first 12 months or so of ownership.

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Shaq’s Ford F-650

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These types of trucks pop up from time to time, built in the spirit of a big rig but with a typical cargo bed robbed from a similar-era Super Duty pickup truck. It makes a dose of sense that someone the size of Shaq would have one in their fleet, especially one which had been further modified to the zenith of luxury inside its four-door SuperCrew cab. The diesel engine work well, here, too — Shaq used the same name as the title for his first crack at a rap album.

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