If you insist on wearing professional-grade driving shoes to run gas-and-groceries errands around town, you should probably expect people to judge the bright blue suede high-tops under your jeans that are clearly made for heel-toeing sports cars instead than standing in line. Fashion is subjective though, and you’re free to wear race boots to the coffee shop just like you’re free to wear a full-body polyester cycling suit that looks like the yellow jersey to the same place. For those who prefer a subtler look though, and one that doesn’t abandon the sports focus of a good driving shoe, there are options like the Piloti Pistone that live in the middle of the Venn diagram between full-on and laid back.
Today we’ve added two more pairs to the Petrolicious Shop, but these are more like evo versions of the classic casual driving shoe, and Piloti is calling the reimagined Pistone (seems to be a popular phrase these days) the Pistone X. The fit is updated to make the shoes more wearable for the full day with additional padding around the collars, an ergonomically improved cupsole inside the shoe along with the company’s modern rollable heel design on the sole, which comes in Piloti’s tire tread pattern. Because comfort is more than just the actual wearing of a shoe, there’s also an anti-microbial lining on the quilted side panels inside the Pistone X, which helps control the sweaty feet that come with spirited driving—in other words, you can comfortably use them for weeks at a time without them building up a permanent post-race smell.
Both the grey suede and black leather/ballistic nylon Pistone X models (these materials are part of the classic design’s update) are handmade in Portugal using Italian leather, but are only available to customers in the United States at the moment.
