Ryan Friedlinghaus is the founder and CEO of West Coast Customs, a popular car remodeling company, and Shaquille O’Neal was his first big client. During an appearance on The Tom Ward Show, Friedlinghaus revealed some of the wild requests that O’Neal has made over the years.
“Shaq, he still calls me to this day of like, ‘Hey, I found this, we need to build this.’ He sends me these links, (and says) ‘Get me one of (these), build me one of these.’ And it’s like a Mustang that you see in the water,” Friedlinghaus said. “That it looks like a car but it’s a boat. I’m like, ‘Big, we can’t,’ (He says), “I want one of these, but a truck.’
“After the Navigator, he got a Bentley Azure,” Friedlinghaus continued. “I’ve never even seen a Bentley Azure. (He said), “I got this as a gift from my dad, can’t drive it.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ He’s like, ‘My knee hits the steering wheel and the door panel. I can’t fit.’ I’m like, ‘Well, let’s move the seat back.’ (He said), ‘I still can’t fit.’
“Let’s make a new steering wheel. So I made him the first Superman steering wheel,” Friedlinghaus stated. ” He buys a Ferrari. He’s like, ‘I wanna make this Ferrari convertible.’ I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’ He’s like, ‘Cut the roof off the Ferrari.’ So we cut the roof off a Ferrari. These are things that he pushed me. That’s where I got that sense of I can do anything.”
I suppose when you’ve managed to perform all these crazy modifications that O’Neal has wanted, there aren’t too many things you feel you can’t accomplish. I can’t say I am surprised that the four-time NBA champion put in such crazy requests. He has always had extravagant tastes, as is the case when you’re a millionaire.
O’Neal ended up playing a role in Friedlinghaus and West Coast Customs becoming somewhat of a household name among car enthusiasts. The relationship with the NBA star helped land a deal with MTV which saw West Coast Customs be featured in the first four seasons of Pimp My Ride. The show first aired in 2004 and proved to be quite a hit, which led to the company’s popularity soaring as well.
Joe Rogan Revealed What Shaquille O’Neal Does To His Cars
Famous podcaster Joe Rogan also shared an interesting tidbit regarding Shaq and his cars once. Rogan revealed that O’Neal has to take out the back seats because he is such a big man.
“Have you ever heard what Shaq does with his cars? He like, takes out the back seats. I’ve seen like custom cars they’ve made for him. Like the seat basically sits where the back seat should be. Because he’s so big. … We showed a video that day of me and him doing Fear Factor because he was a host on Fear Factor with me one day. Literally, it’s like a six-year-old standing in front of his dad, a gigantic human being.”
Unlike the crazy modifications O’Neal had Friedlinghaus make to those cars, this was more of a necessity to be fair. When you stand at 7’1″ like him, you do need a lot more space than the average human being. Fortunately, when you consider O’Neal reportedly has a net worth of over $500 million, such modifications don’t hurt his pockets much.
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