AdminWhen most professional basketball players retire, they don’t walk into a Subaru dealership and ask for a job as an apprentice mechanic. They also don’t have a widebody Porsche 997 and BMW E30 Touring in their garage. Leo Lyons is different, as you’ll see in this week’s episode of CARISMA on YouTube.
Getting paid to play basketball is a lifelong dream for many. For Leo it was always a means to an end. The fact that it ultimately involves German cars with JDM widebody kits may seem surprising, but it all makes sense when you look at his life path: a tall boy who grew up in Kansas City and was involved in cars and fashion, did not finish his studies and a career as a basketball player in Japan, where the country’s love for outrageous widebody kits hit him hard.
He was always very open about his love for cars, hoping that it would plant seeds for later, when his playing days were over. Then a fan gave him the chance to visit RWB and hang out with Akira Nakai, an opportunity that changed his life as much as basketball did.
“Seeing him work and being around him, and seeing how people respect him to this day, has always motivated me to want to do exactly what he does. That means opening a store where I can do whatever I want. Meeting him made me see that there is a place for me in creating a world like this.”
Over the years, Leo continued to play, make connections, and earn enough to buy a Porsche 997, an Audi R8, a neat second-generation Subaru WRX STI, and a house in upstate New York with room to build that shop . He bought the Porsche hoping to have a RWB kit installed, but when Covid delayed the process he went for a 935-style slant nose kit from New Year’s Eve in Japan and never looked back.
Then, with a daughter on the way, he bought the BMW E30 Touring after seeing it in a Larry Chen video. It was custom built by Eric Penelow, co-founder of Live to Offend, a company that sells cool widebody kits for the E30, E36 and Mazda FD RX-7. In it, Eric explains that he built it as a fun family car to carry his two kids in, keeping the M20 straight-six mostly stock, save for upgraded studs and gaskets and a Precision 5858 turbo to keep power around 340 hp. He also said very clearly that it was not for sale.
Leo was hooked, and with a daughter on the way he found his father’s car. He contacted Eric through Larry and asked if he could be first in line if he ever changed his mind. Plant seeds again. A few months later the car was in his garage.
There is still much to be done to create this store, build its new identity and bring people and influences from around the world together around its vision. (Hence the Subaru dealer’s story: He wants to learn as much as he can. And he knows this second act is unexpected for someone in his position. He’s spent most of his 37 years on this planet thinking about basketball, and he can just walk away from all that and become Leo, the widebody tuner guy In his words, pretty much.
“It makes people angry about how simple I am. Sometimes I just don’t want to do things I don’t like. I played basketball for a long time and when I stopped loving it, what next?” he says. “That’s why I’ve made the decisions I’ve made by throwing myself completely into cars.”
We’ll see where he takes it, and we’ll be rooting for him. Especially if he keeps doing that crazy widebody thing, which sounds like he will.
“Every time I collected Hot Wheels [growing up]I knew I was going to get that car, like I was collecting it because I’m going to get it one day. That’s kind of where my theme came from with the cars I buy, which is a little bit broader than I probably should have. It’s because I want my cars to really look like a Hot Wheel. So that’s kind of my goal is to try to create and make builds that make me feel like that kid again.
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