Independent Truck Company is a skateboard truck manufacturer based in Santa Cruz, California established in 1978. The trucks are manufactured at the Ermico foundry, in the Bay area of San Francisco.
The company was co-founded by Richard Novak, Jay Shiurman, Fausto Vitello, and Eric Swenson in 1978, and the first set of trucks to make a public appearance was the Stage 1 on May 23, 1978 in Newark CA. According to original team rider Rick Blackhart, the Independent truck (or Indy) was designed as a response to the lack of good skateboard trucks on the market at the time; Blackhart stated that, of the two main other truck companies on the market, ' one broke, and one didn’t turn ', referring to Bennett Trucks and Tracker Trucks, respectively.[citation needed]
The iconic logo for the trucks, the Alisee (often mistaken for the Iron Cross ), came out in 1979 when Pope John Paul II was wearing the icon on his vestment on the cover of TIME magazine June 18, 1979. It has remained the Independent logo since inception.[citation needed]
The current model of Independent Trucks, the Stage X(also known as the "stage 10"), was released in 2008.[citation needed] They are currently sponsoring Ryan Sheckler and Kevin Maman
The Independent Stage 9 Low truck was released on the 9 September 2006, as a lighter and lower profile version of the Independent compared to the regular Stage 9. Eric Koston left Royal Trucks and signed with Independent and helped finish the design of the Indy Low.[1]
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