Huffy Skateboards Part 2: Wooden Thunder, Rockers, Mountains and Heat

As promised, here’s part 2 of the series on Huffy skateboards. I’ve got 11 different models to show you from the 70’s and 80’s, plus a couple of weird ones. Some of these were hard to track down because Huffy had the annoying habit of using the same model names for bicycles and skateboards, so trying to find better pictures is next to impossible when you have to wade through a thousand bicycle pictures because Google thinks it knows what you want to see.

First up is the Quick Thunder model 7580. Shawn, man, you never sent me pictures… These came from Ebay. This deck has a heavy middle school woodshed class vibe to it. It’s thick as all get out and the kicktail is grafted on top of a flat board. The die cut grip tape strips are a nice touch though. The wood must be pretty soft because that mounting hardware is buried deep. The sticker on the bottom has the classic Thunder Board logo on it but no model number. This board is 25″ long and 6″ wide. Includes an Action Tail just like the plastic ones!

Next up is the Thunder Star, weighing in at 28″ long and 7″ wide. Note the two different versions of grip tape. One is the same as the Quick Thunder while the other appears to be die cut specifically for the Thunder Star. The top stickers appear to be different colors too, although that nay be due to UV exposure.

Sticking with the Thunder Board theme, here’s the Pro Thunder. Curiously, the sticker on the bottom of this one says “Off the Wall” model 7588. Did this one get the wrong label? Check out the mounting pattern on those trucks, they have a hole for a middle screw in from top the kingpin. Some of those 70’s boards used a triangle pattern. This is the only photo of the Pro Thunder I have been able to find.

Off the Wall model 7588. This one is easier to find.

Back again with the Thunder namesake, this time with the Thunder Bolt model 7585. This board comes with a logo change. I think this board might be older than the others but I can’ the sure because there is no online history of Huffy logos available. The company started as a sewing machine manufacturer with a differnt name in 1882, and eventually transitioned into bicycles. The only thing I could find out was that original Huffy” logo was created in 1963, and it’s not anything you’ve seen on this page. This board appears to be laminated however! It’s hard to tell because even photo I’ve been able to find is shot directly almost overhead or is very poor quality.

Heres’ what I’m going to call the Thunderbolt 2, based purely on the fact that it has different sticker that looks newer design-wise Thant the previous one. What does the top look like? I’ve only seen one tiny picture and to confuse things further, it looks like the Quick Thunder. To further confuse things, if you look closely you can see this model uses vertically laminated wood just like the Quick Thunder. I can’t find a photo of the bottom sticker that is large enough see if there’s a model number or not.

Here’s an interesting “replacement deck” complete in packaging. Old vertical lamination style, 15″ long, part number 6235. Looks like it’s pretty good wood quality.

Here’s were it gets a little funky. Check out the Rocker (model 7583) and the Edge (model 7584), both 25″ long and 6″ wide. The Rocker was probably named because of its exaggerated rocker-type construction. I’m not sure why they felt the need to come out with The Edge in such quick succession.

So far we’ve identified model 7580 – Quick Thunder, 7583 – Rocker, 7584 – Edge, 7585 – Thunderbolt, and 7588 – Off The Wall. That leaves 7581, 7582, 7586, and 7587 unaccounted for. The Thunder Star and Pro Thunder might be one of those, as well as the Thunderbolt 2, if that was given a separate model number. It seem like a print avertisement or a toy catalog might fill in some of those gaps, but I’ve not seen Huffy products in any of those from the appropriate era.

Speaking of appropriate eras, let’s move on to the 80’s! First up, we’ve got White Heat. Those neon trucks and wheels are glorious, but check out the lack of concave and those sharp edges… ouch! I can’t figure out what that graphic is supposed to be, some sort of new wave knight?

Lastly, here is the oddly named Stone Mountain, followed by the Stalker. All of these pale in comparison to what Haro did in the 80’s. You’d think Huffy could have done better.

Thats’s if for wooden Huffy skateboards. First we covered plastic Huffy skateboards. The next installment will cover plexiglass and fiberglass boards, followed by another installment covering Huffy skateboarding accessories. As always, if you have info or pictures of boards I’m not showing, please send ’em in!