back in the 70’s there was a different approach to skateboard company logos. A lot of times they were treated as car racing graphics, like say the Super Bee. Jim Phillips made a career out of the cartoonish design style for skateboard product logos. Nowadays a more distressed look and hip hop styles are in vogue. Other companies have maintained the cartoon like art direction, but I don’t think they are as memorable as some of the old 70’s stuff. In the mid 80’s I received a well worn stack of old Skateboarder and Action Now magazines. I never actually saw any of the old Alligator wheels, but the logo was burned into my mind as an archetypal 70’s skateboarding graphic. Bennett Truks has resurrected the Alligator Wheels product name, but curiously enough, doesn’t have them on their sparsely populated web site. They are the same color and rough shape as the old ones appear to be, although it’s hard to tell. I had some of Madrid’s reborn Cadillac Wheels and found them to be good for completing a nice vintage look, but not very useful for riding, even as a cruiser. It seemed to be a fault of the old design stlye. Although still not center set, these new Alligator’s seem to be more useful for some types of riding. They are being billed as longboard and park riders.
[Source: Tail Tap]
5 comments
JustSomeFreestyler
Around here it used to be an insult to ride Bennett Truks because of the breakage problem, but now’n’days the new Bennett Truks are damn strong and stable. I have them on my GS Slalom setup complete with alligators and they perform nicely. I also have a set of the 4.3’s on my Freestyle setup, they get quite the beating there too, and perform fine. I wish they would make more products, some street/park based truks would be great, the current ones work, but you’ll grind through that square axel pretty damn quick. More sizes, would be killer as well. The wheels are grippy but not soggy, if you skate any kind of downhill you’ll know what I mean…. they slide ok as well.
bobcat
dude 99% of the fatties guy in S&B buy trucks so they can keep them in their basement because it might be worth a dollar more in 20 years.
houseofneil
some of the guys on S&B love them, but they know “Mr. Bennett”, so they might be biased. The wheels are supposedly really good. And to kill any confusion, Bennett were the original maunfacturers of Alligator wheels, so it’s not like the new Bennett just bought the name or something.
Kilwag
Kind of like Bennett Truks version two were, I think they advertised for a good two years before they finally became available. I wonder if the trucks are any good. In all the documentaries and books everyone – including the Indy guys -always said Bennett trucks were great for turning except the base plates were plastic and broke. Now that they are available again and have metal baseplates… who knows? What’s the verdict? Anyone?
Conahan
Wasn’t that one of those vaporware products that they hyped and advertised but took forever to actually come out? I think they started pitching them before precision bearings and if they ever did appear, it was after the changeover.