For the last 50-years, Porsche pilots wearing these racing shoes have won every important race you can imagine. Meet the man who makes them.

Nestled quietly in a small, coastal, picturesque Sicilian town, a charismatic shoemaker has been crafting performance footwear for some of the world’s top drivers for over fifty years. Ciccio Liberto, the strongly-built cobbler with a forceful personality, lives and breathes motorsport like few truly do. His commitment to traditional means of making high-quality racing shoes has won him a long list of well-known clients ranging from Vic Elford to Sebastian Vettel.

Ciccio was first commissioned in 1965 by Alfa Corse Racing Drivers Ignazio Giunti, Nanni Galli and Geki Russo. Over the next thirty years, thanks to a strong affiliation with Ferrari drivers, Ciccio became a bonafide celebrity in Sicily, and his shoes have become respected status symbols in the racing world.

Stuck on his fifty-year-old recipe for making racing shoes, Ciccio still requests that his clients sketch their own feet using a pen held vertically over a piece of paper, which he will use to make a set of custom shoes with the sort of old-world flair that make them truly unique.

Here, he proudly tours CJ Wilson and Dario Franchitti through his well-decorated shop and explains how he made make his two passions—speed and fashion—mix. Some people profess themselves to be enthusiasts or aficionados, but Ciccio belongs to an exclusive group of men and women with motor oil coursing through their veins.