Independent Truck Company is an American skateboard truck manufacturer based in Santa Cruz, California. Established in 1978, the brand is currently owned by NHS, Inc. and has an extended list of sponsored team riders. The trucks are made by Ermico Enterprises, in the bay area of San Francisco.
Origin
The business was co-founded by Richard Novak, Jay Shiurman, Fausto Vitello, and Eric Swenson and the Stage 1 model was the first product. released on May 23, 1978, in Newark, California. The Independent truck model (or "Indy") was designed due to a response of lacking of high quality skateboard trucks on the market at the time. In reference to the two other major truck companies on the market, Blackhart stated that quote one broke, and one didn't turn (Bennett and Tracker Trucks, respectively).[1]
Independent trucks are built with:
high tensile grade 8 Chromoly kingpins and 6061 baseplates
high quality SCM435 alloy steel axles and A356 T6 hangers
high rebound formula stock 90a medium durometer bushings.
Product releases
Stage I - 1978
Stage II - 1979
Stage III - 1982
Stage IV - 1986
Stage V - 1988
Stage VI - 1991
Stage VII - 1993
Stage VIII - 1997
Stage IX - 2003
Stage X - 2009
Stage XI - 2012
Logo
The logo for the trucks was based on the Iron Cross according to the artist, Jim Phillips. It has remained the Indy logo since the brand's inception and was derived from the French variation of the Cross pattée.
Jim Phillips says in his 2007 book "The Art of Jim Phillips":
...I began toying with the iron, or Maltese cross which was long gone as the old 60s surfer's cross, and even longer dead as the biker's cross. I used a beam compass to make it into a round shape, which looked completely different than the old square iron crosses... I took my idea into the NHS office the next morning and it went on the wall as usual. Jay and Rich each stared at it for a while, and they both thought that it looked a little too "Nazi". My sketches were rejected and I was sent back to the drawing board. I went back to my studio determined to use it, knowing it was the one. I searched my archives and scrap file for some justification for using the symbol. I found a firefighter's logo, symbols on the knights and Columbus sails. Then in my scrap file, under the letter P, I found a Time magazine cover of Pope John Paul from the June 18, 1979 edition. It was amazing; there was a cross on his vestments almost the way I designed mine. I marched into the office the next morning with the magazine to show what I thought was proof of acceptability. They both looked at each other and said, 'Well, if the Pope has it, it must be okay!' That was that, and the Independent cross was born.
In 2021, after many vocalized opinions that the cross was indeed too "Nazi-like", Independent eventually deprecated the Iron Cross logo in favor of a different design.[2]
References
^Denike, Bob. Built to Grind: 25 Years of hardcore skateboarding from the archives of Independent Truck Company. San Francisco: NHS, 2004. Print.
