Tesla Model S aftermarket project highlights NBA icon’s attachment to his electric car

It is easy to develop an attachment for Tesla’s electric cars. Fast, sleek, and fun to drive, the company’s vehicles have a pretty good penchant for being memorable. For NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, his Tesla Model S P85 is one such vehicle.

Having an estimated net worth of $400 million as of this year, Shaq has the means to buy every car that catches his fancy — and buy them he does. The retired NBA star owns an impressive car collection, including a stretched Lamborghini Gallardo, a heavily-modified, custom-built Ford F-650 pickup truck, and a Rolls Royce Phantom. O’Neal is also known to splurge from time to time, at one point spending $70,000 in a shopping spree at a Walmart.

Despite this, Shaq seems to have a particular attachment to his pre-facelift Tesla Model S P85, which still sported Tesla’s classic nosecone found in the first iterations of the full-sized electric sedan. Considering Shaq’s love of cars, he could easily purchase a fully-loaded Tesla Model S P100D without batting an eye. Instead of doing this, the NBA icon opted to take his aging P85 to Tesla aftermarket company Unplugged Performance in Hawthorne, CA, to have his electric car redone and updated with a new front fascia and various other accents. 

Ben Schaffer, CEO and founder of Unplugged Performance, noted in a statement to Teslarati that he found Shaq’s request quite interesting due to the background of the NBA star. That said, Ben stated that Shaq seemed to have a particular attachment to the vehicle, and that he wanted the Unplugged Performance team to make his Model S feel “like a new car” again. The entire project took a single day, with the team installing its front fascia refresh kit, side skirts, rear diffuser, and rear diffuser fins. On account of his steep garage, Shaq opted out of any modification to his Model S P85’s suspension.

The NBA legend was quite happy with the results of his car’s aftermarket modification, giving a shoutout to the Unplugged Performance team on his Instagram page.

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