{"id":957022,"date":"2026-07-24T21:37:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/957022\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T21:37:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:37:16","slug":"shaquille-oneal-cruises-dallas-lake-in-chevy-impala-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/957022\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaquille O’Neal cruises Dallas lake in Chevy Impala boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cOh, my God! My Impala boat has arrived!\u201d The shout comes from NBA Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/strong>, as seen in a viral video<\/a> from California-based Effortless Motors.<\/p>\n

Those on Lake Ray Hubbard one day in early July witnessed the 7-foot-1-inch basketball superstar, known worldwide as Shaq, cruising the North Texas waters in a convertible 1964 Chevrolet Impala. A surreal sight, onlookers say. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had to do a double take, rub my eyes, and hope no one had spiked my coffee,\u201d says Rockwall resident Steve Johns via phone. Johns was doing maintenance on his berthed boat when he saw the celebrity steering the craft through the waves with two other men aboard.<\/p>\n

The passengers were Ahmad Abdelrahman and Daniel Ubario, classic car specialists who founded Effortless Motors, a full-service auto concierge in Riverside, California. They built and delivered the custom craft to O’Neal and filmed<\/a> both its reveal and its maiden voyage.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neal had semi-jokingly discussed the idea with the men last March, on his 54th birthday, while commissioning a Chevy Impala \u201864 restoration for his multimillion-dollar car collection. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted something crazy that no one in the world has ever seen,\u201d Abdelrahman, Effortless CEO, tells CultureMap in an interview. <\/p>\n

In early July, the team delivered O’Neal’s consigned classic car to his home in the Ridge Lakes of Heath subdivision, on the lake\u2019s east side. The video shows O\u2019Neal treating family members to low, rumbling rides around his otherwise quiet suburban enclave and appearing ecstatic as he hugs and heaps praise upon the car specialists.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou did a great job. Oh, thank you! Everything is perfect,\u201d O\u2019Neal says about the $1.2 million street-ready Impala, whose price reflects the extensive modifications needed to accommodate Shaq\u2019s XXL physique. \u201cBut you promised me the boat for my birthday,\u201d O\u2019Neal quips.<\/p>\n

On cue, a second trailer arrives hauling the gold Impala boat, a nod to Doughboy (Ice Cube)\u2019s 1993 ride in the movie Boyz n the Hood.<\/p>\n

The logistics of delivering both a car and a surprise boat \u2014 and secretly setting up the latter\u2019s trial run \u2014 were challenging, but O’Neal’s reaction made everything worthwhile, Abdelrahman says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best thing was knowing we built something that has never existed before,” he says. “Seeing that Impala on the water, it\u2019s like seeing a unicorn flying across the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the video, Shaq is seen settling into the customized captain\u2019s seat and navigating choppy waters as Abdelrahman exclaims, \u201cFirst seven footer to drive a \u201864 Impala in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce again, Effortless Motors delivers,\u201d O\u2019Neal says into the camera. <\/p>\n

The video then shows the famous TNT broadcaster stopping under storm clouds to sign autographs and snap photos with starstruck lakegoers. \u201cWe love your boat, Shaq,\u201d a teenage boy is heard saying after snapping a selfie. \u201cYou\u2019re the best, man. We love you!\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neal has lived part-time in the Dallas area since 2022, when he bought <\/a>a $1.2 million Carrollton mansion. He sold it for $1.7 million and moved into his current 5,100 square-foot, approximately $2 million Rockwall County estate in 2024.<\/p>\n

Since then, sightings <\/a>of the megastar abound around Dallas-Fort Worth. In Mesquite in 2024, he treated <\/a>20 students to $500 shopping sprees at JCPenney. On another occasion<\/a> he gave a $500 gift card to a couple he met at Fort Worth\u2019s JCPenney, which they paid forward to children in need. And earlier this year at the Rockwall Target, he distributed <\/a>$100 bills to shoppers at random. He’s also behind the Big Chicken restaurant franchise, whose Fort Worth location recently closed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Shaq isn’t the only retired athlete taking high-end toys to Texas waters. While his Impala jetboat is one of a kind, other luxury autos afloat have been spotted nearby. Former Dallas Maverick Charlie Villanueva regularly is seen cruising his Rolls Royce amphi-boat near his Lake Ray Hubbard home, many Instagram commenters pointed out after Shaq\u2019s maritime adventure went viral.<\/p>\n

Automotive journalists at The Autopian<\/a> noted that, based video footage, Shaq\u2019s new toy is not amphibious but rather a fiberglass silhouette of the Impala attached to a jet boat hull.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t take away from the spectacle of the thing much, with the rather slab-sided Impala body cutting an unexpected shape through the water,\u201d wrote The Autopian’s Andrew Evans.<\/p>\n

A still from the Effortless Motors video <\/p>\n

Courtesy of Effortless Motors\/Youtube<\/p>\n

A still from the Effortless Motors video <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOh, my God! My Impala boat has arrived!\u201d The shout comes from NBA Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O\u2019Neal, as seen…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":957023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,419,185,1596,385004,385003,13416,46613,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-957022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-america","tag-cars","tag-celebrities","tag-dallas","tag-impala-boat","tag-lake-ray-hubbard","tag-rockwall","tag-shaquille-oneal","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116977116660044672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}