Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Willy Santos.



Helmet.

Willy is doing a switch crooked grind for Formula One Wheels by Acme during the Birdhouse Projects days. You don't really think of Willy as doing a lot of opposite footed tricks, but he was throwing out some good ones in the Untitled video from 1993. I had at least one set of wheels by Acme and a bunch of their shirts. Their whole no pro model theme has been discussed to death, but I always dug their graphics and ad designs. I've probably mentioned that way too often as well.

Transworld - September 1993 Volume 11 Number 9

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you have the misfortune of owning the one-bearing wheels?

Justin said...

Did those ever exist?

I know Acme was trying to make it happen, but I don't think they were ever successful.

Anonymous said...

I think they came out. I remember hearing that the single bearing would fall out of them.

nonickname said...

Hold up. You've been doing this for how long and this is the first Santos scan? He was always clean, saw him once skate a mini bowl behind a shop in NY state and he was just so smooth and effortless looking.

Justin said...

Yes, this is the first time Willy has been on here solo. I'm as surprised as you are. I was shocked when I was doing the scanning and checked the numbers to see that Willy was at zero. He's had a shared ad with Brian Howard and was included during fashion week with a trio of Rusty ads. His part in the first Birdhouse video is great.

Was it BTI in Niagara Falls?

I would believe that Acme made prototypes of the one bearing wheel for riders to test. It obviously didn't work because it never went into production. I couldn't find any documentation of it beyond a photo on the Hundreds' blog about a visit to Jim Gray's workshop. I'm not even sure if it was a one bearing wheel in the photo, it might have just been a small wheel of the time.

Nonickname said...

It was in Niagara falls. We used to every now and then fill a car with people and cross the border for a shopping run (early 90's). I clearly remember seeing the Rodney deck with him on the motorcycle and the topless woman there and thinking how crazy it was.

Justin said...

They always had a lot of World Industries gear. We ordered and/or bought stuff there. I guess they were on the up and up, but I would never give out my credit card to a skateshop over the phone these days.

I was never good ramps back then. I wish BTI had been around in the late 90s/early 2000s when I was better at transition skating because it seemed like a fun setup.