Nike Book 2: Sneakers Inspired by Devin Booker's Classic Impalas
The sneakers hang from the rearview mirror of a bronze 1959 Impala, swaying gently where fuzzy dice used to live. That single image, pushed out by Chevrolet, says everything about this collaboration that the press release can’t.
The car belongs to Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker. As of today, it also doubles as a design brief.
Book 2: A sneaker pulled straight out of the garage
Nike and Booker have rolled out the Book 2, a four-shoe collection that doesn’t just nod at his love of classics — it raids his actual fleet. Each colorway is tied to a specific vintage Impala from his personal stash: 1958, 1959, 1962, and 1963.
The lead pair, “Pretty Penny,” draws its palette directly from that bronze ’59 convertible, the car Chevrolet credits as the spark for Booker’s classic-car obsession. Last year’s Book 1 leaned on his vintage Chevy Blazers. This time, the Impalas take center stage.
This isn’t a generic performance model with a retro badge slapped on the heel. Chevrolet says every Book 2 design is color-matched to its source car’s paint, with small, obsessive touches layered in. The tongue tops echo the Impala hood ornament. The model year is stitched into the shoe itself.
Most signature sneakers stop at team colors or a hometown flag. This one walks out of one man’s garage.
A full-on throwback world
The project doesn’t end at the midsole. The surrounding collection leans hard into Chevrolet’s past.
A “Heartbeat of America” T-shirt revives the slogan from Chevy’s ad campaigns that ran through the 1980s and into the ’90s. The shoe box arrives dressed like mid-century Chevrolet Accessories packaging: kraft paper, bold block lettering, and that teal-and-orange combo the brand wore long before “heritage marketing” became a boardroom phrase.
It’s not just nostalgia for its own sake. It’s a deliberate decision to frame the sneakers as artifacts in a larger piece of Americana.
Launching at Woodward, not just on a screen
Nike didn’t quietly upload “Pretty Penny” to a website and call it a day. The first drop landed in Detroit on August 15 during the Woodward Dream Cruise, a pilgrimage for people who already speak fluent Impala.
To even get a chance at a pair, fans had to register through SNKRS Pass on August 14. Winners then picked up their shoes in person at Burn Rubber in Royal Oak, Michigan. It’s a familiar Nike tactic: a regional exclusive that drives local buzz before a wider release, but here it also puts the shoe in front of the exact crowd that understands the car behind it.
The global release hits today, August 26. The remaining three colorways, built around the ’58, ’62, and ’63 Impalas, are slated for December.
And the stage they chose was no sideshow. The Woodward Dream Cruise runs roughly sixteen miles down Woodward Avenue and pulls in around 40,000 vintage cars and spectators from across North America. Booker’s Impala rolled among them, a moving billboard for a sneaker that started life as sheet metal.
A different kind of athlete endorsement
Most athlete-brand deals skim the surface: a jersey number here, a birth year there, maybe a favorite color baked into a limited edition. Book 2 digs deeper.
This line is built on Booker’s actual property. The connection isn’t theoretical; it’s parked under his roof. He has framed the project as a blend of his Michigan roots and his passion for Chevy, a way to stitch together where he comes from and what he collects.
For Chevrolet, it’s shrewd business. The Impala nameplate is gone from showrooms, but not from the culture. By tying it to a current NBA star with a younger audience, Chevy keeps a discontinued badge alive without the cost of a massive ad buy.
It also opens a runway. Book 1 pulled from Blazers. Book 2 mines the Impalas. Book 3 could easily move on to whatever else ends up in Booker’s garage. For Chevrolet, one player’s collection becomes a long-running content engine, far cheaper and more flexible than a single Super Bowl commercial.
Chasing pairs or chasing titles
Right now, anyone hunting a “Pretty Penny” has a narrow lane: today’s global release, with three more Impala-inspired colorways coming in December.
For some, the sneakers will be enough. For others, they’ll be a gateway drug. A taste of a ’58–’64 Impala might send a fan down the path of frame checks, paint inspections, and classifieds searches — the same rabbit hole that’s kept this model relevant long after production stopped.
Booker isn’t the only athlete turning a garage into a headline. Shaquille O’Neal’s one-off Impala boat, the custom 1959 Impala tied to Nipsey Hussle’s music video, and LeBron James’ six-figure Maybach build all underline the same truth: when stars buy cars, the cars become part of the story.
This time, that story fits inside a shoebox. A strange place to store automotive history, maybe. But for a nameplate that refuses to fade, it’s one more road back into the spotlight.
