adidas' Finest, Flattest Racing Shoe Speeds Back to Life
adidas is so good at flat footwear that it doesn't even have to design all-new sneakers. Its latest bit of low-top genius involves reviving the Adiracer shoe, a racing sneaker from the adidas archive that has never looked more stylish.
The adidas Adiracer sneaker is an odd silhouette at first blush, so streamlined that it almost looks like a car itself (albeit without wheels).
When it originally released over two decades ago, the adidas Adiracer was created in partnership with tire manufacturer Goodyear, which is less surprising than it may sound. The Goodyear name is intimately associated with footwear construction not just because of the company that produces hardwearing rubber but because of the Goodyear welting technique.
Of course, the adidas Adiracer is much more in line with the former.
Goodyear used to provide the race-ready material that made the Adiracer a sturdy option for folks who put the pedal to the metal.
The sneaker was such a natural fit that it once inspired incredibly reputable-sounding blog It's a Man's Life to call it the "world's greatest shoe." So that's something.
But the reborn adidas Adiracer shoe is manufactured entirely by adidas, replacing sole's minute Goodyear branding with an adidas Trefoil logo.
It's also clad in an intriguing white-on-red colorway that employs contrast stitching over a technical material (perhaps weather-resistant nylon).
The end result is a suitably speedy-looking shoe that instantly recalls the moto-inspired styling of PUMA's popular Speedcat, a steal for at ₩149,000 (about $110) on the Korean adidas website.
It'd make sense that the Adiracer would be reborn to cash in on a contemporary trend — beyond the general flattening of footwear that's been happening ever
since the Samba's boom in 2023 or so, there's a hunger for even sportier shoes.
And racing sneaker just so happen to come pre-flattened, trend or not.
You can find OG adidas Adiracer sneakers in so-so condition on secondhand sites and they were once available at big-box retailers like Macy's but it'd be worth waiting until adidas reissues the Adiracer later this year — nothing like that new-school tech.
