New Balance 992 Made in USA Shadow Grey: Cowhide, Not Pigskin

The Made in USA 992 in Shadow Grey went up on June 11 at 10 a.m. Eastern and sold out. It costs $199.99, the style code is U9927WX, and the spec line that has followed the 992 around for twenty years does not apply to it. New Balance says so on its own product page. This one is cow leather.

Almost every writeup of a 992, including an earlier version of this one, describes the upper as premium pigskin suede. New Balance’s product page for U9927WX carries a materials note that reads, plainly, that the item contains cow leather. The sibling colorway from the same season, the Sea Stone and Green Apple and Maize 992 filed under U9929NF, says the item contains cow and pig leather. Same model, same season, same factory, different hide. Pigskin and cow suede scuff and age differently, so this is not a trivia point for anyone who intends to wear the shoe. It is also the kind of thing that only turns up if you open two product pages instead of copying a spec sheet.

The 992 arrived as a centennial shoe. Jonathan Bacon, who joined New Balance in 1999, designed it, and it launched in late 2005 with a full rollout in February 2006 to mark the brand’s hundredth year. It succeeded the 991 of 2001 and was itself superseded and deleted a few years later, with the 993 taking over. That short production life is part of why the 992 kept its reputation.

The other line the 992 attracts is that it was Steve Jobs’s shoe, and that one is only half right. Jobs wore the 991 through the defining Apple years. He was in the 991 on stage at Macworld in January 2007 when he introduced the iPhone, a detail Bacon himself pointed out to Complex, noting that the footwear was slightly outmoded at the time. Bacon puts the switch later that year, after which the 992 became the shoe most associated with him. Wikipedia’s entry on Jobs names the 991. Photographs from his last years show the 992. Both camps are partly right, and the flat version, that the 992 was Steve Jobs’s shoe, is the one that fails.

Shadow Grey is the quiet end of a grey shoe, which is saying something. New Balance’s product page calls it Shadow Grey with Turtledove and Blacktop. The brand’s own Made in USA spring and summer press release calls the same style code Shadow Grey, Team Away Grey and Turtledove. That is two brand sources disagreeing on the third color, and no outlet covering the shoe noticed, because every one of them took the product page. Underfoot it is the standard 992 package, an ENCAP midsole pairing lightweight foam with a durable polyurethane rim, with ABZORB at the heel and forefoot.

The style code looks wrong and is not. New Balance runs two numbering systems on the 992. Core colorways get short codes, so the standing grey is U992GY. The seasonal Made in USA drops curated under Teddy Santis get a longer code, U992 plus a three character seasonal suffix. New Balance’s own spring and summer press release lists four of them this season, U992720, U99278L, U9929NF and U9927WX. Nothing about U9927WX is a typo.

Made in USA is a qualified claim, and New Balance qualifies it in the same breath. The brand’s own language is that Made in USA footwear contains a domestic value of 70 percent or more, and that Made in USA makes up a limited portion of New Balance’s US sales. Seventy percent of value, not a wholly domestic shoe. Any post that says Made in USA without that number is overstating what New Balance itself claims.

At $199.99 the 992 sits exactly at the house price for the American factories. The Made in USA 990v6 is $199.99 and the 993 is $199.99, with the 990v4 fifteen dollars below at $184.99. New Balance’s press release puts the whole spring and summer Made in USA range between $185 and $220, so this is mid band rather than premium. One comparison to avoid: the 991v2 at $269.99 is not a Made in USA shoe. It lives on a Made in UK product path and is built in Flimby, England, and that seventy dollar gap is a factory difference rather than a spec difference.

Shadow Grey released June 11, 2026 at 10 a.m. Eastern under style code U9927WX at $199.99, and New Balance’s own page is where that time comes from rather than a blog. It is sold out there now, with a back in stock notification. Sneakersnstuff still lists sizes at 230 euros and Rooney has 9 and 9.5 at 300 Canadian, both above American retail. More of the model is on the 992 hub, the Incense colorway covers the warmer half of the same season, and the rest of the brand is in the New Balance archive.

Source: Sole Retriever

Written by

The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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