Thursday, March 26, 2015

Misunderstood Trucks #2.







If you weren't feeling what Indy or Venture provided as a way to hold the wheels on your board, several other companies stepped to the plate to give you a number of options.

Jones came up with an unusual square design that changed the location of the kingpin. Future Birdhouse am Jon Goemann was down to give them a try. In looking at those trucks, I'm not sure which is the right way to put them on a board.

Titanium is a material that gets tinkered with from time to time. For as much theoretical promise as it offers since it is a lighter and stronger metal, nothing seems to pan out and skateboarding sticks to the same old aluminum. Titans were lighter than regular trucks and came in a variety of colors. They were good enough to earn the endorsement of former H-Streeter Dave Nelson.

Webb Trucks by Omega were basically a normal truck design with some space shaved out of the hanger to reduce weight, which gave them a web like appearance. Frankie Hill and Anthony Carney rode for them. A young Billy Marks also rode for them. This is the ad that caught Ed Templeton's eye and led to Billy eventually getting on Toy Machine.

Tensor is Rodney Mullen's project to create the perfect truck for technical street skating. His idea was to design a truck that was stable to give you more control for switch and flip tricks. They came with a replaceable plastic slider to help your nose and tail slide game. Tensor is still going today, but they have ditched the plastic sliders for a more traditional looking baseplate.

Finally, there is the Kre-Per by Grind King. They opted for a goth inspired design with skulls and a batwing like shape.

The Jones ad design is by Jeff Tarr and the photo by Christophe. (A typo maybe?) Mike Peralta snapped the photos for Titan Trucks. The Billy Marks sequence is by Joey Shigeo. Seu Trinh took the pictures of James Craig.

Jones Trucks: Transworld - November 1998 Volume 16 Number 11

Titan: Slap - March 1999 Volume 8 Number 3

Webb: Slap - August 2000 Volume 9 Number 8

Tensor: Transworld - March 2000 Volume 18 Number 3

Kre-per: Thrasher - December 2000 Volume 20 Number 12

4 comments:

rnc said...

I like that these people were trying something different. Fight the stagnation. Not to take away from how amazing the flip skaters are, but that week was boring in comparison to how interesting this week is. Thanks for digging these ads out.

Justin said...

You're welcome. Flip week was honestly a little boring to do. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Sardo said...

What, no z-rollers!?!?!?!?

Justin said...

Z made it when I did the 1980s version of this.

http://vertisdead.blogspot.com/2014/05/misunderstood-trucks.html