Any time I go in to a resale or vintage store I make a beeline for the magazines and grab anything from 1965-1966 as well as the random publications from late 70’s. The very first thing I picked up at Vintage on Third in McMinnville was copy of Hot Rod Show World 1978. Despite no obvious association, something about it was calling to me. Sure enough, there was a two page spread on skateboarding, as well as a ton of hot rods and predictably, hot rod women.
It’s only two pages out of 146. I’m not sure why there’s a mention of skateboarding in the magazine at all, but there is. The source of expertise appears to be tied to the magazine Wild World of Skateboarding. I thought maybe it was a sister publication but WWW is predictably out of L.A. and Hot Rod World Annual is published out of Pontiac Michigan, which makes sense because all the muscle cars were coming out of Detroit.
There are no photo credits/ Here’s a detail. Someone knows who these guys are..
THERE’S A WILD WORLD OF SKATEBOARDING OUT THERE:
Try to imagine the supreme rushes of surfing, skiing, motorcycle road racing and hang gliding all rolled into one sport – that’s close to the skateboarding experi-ence. The extra weightlessness and greater G-Loads (gravity loads) and the mastery of natural forces that all those other sports offer are available to every skateboarder.
You don’t have to wait for snow to ride a skateboard and the “perfect wave” may be as close as a school playground’s banked pavement or the ultimate experience of skateboarding in one of the special skateboard parks which may have appeared near you. Those skateparks provide engineered-in thrills that can provide you with more thrills and more of a challenge than the best of any other sport. There are nearly 30 skateparks open right now and literally hundreds scheduled to open by the end of the year. WWS lists them all each month.
Skateboarding is actually three sports in one. The downhill styles duplicate much of the action and thrill of slalom skiing. The amp-out skateboarding matches the flow of surfing on the banks of a skatepark or an empty swimming pool. The freestyle side of skateboarding combines the grace of Olympic-style gymnastics with the rolling flow that a skateboard can provide.
Each issue of Wild World of Skateboarding covers all three aspects of the sport with frequent step-by-step instructional articles and interviews with the pros who tell just exactly how each skateboard maneuver can be completed.
Skateboarding has grown up from the days when the wheels were the clay types that worked so well in a roller skating rink. Today’s skateboards are fitted with special urethane plastic wheels, skateboarding trucks and engineered boards. skateboard is now a piece of sporting goods rather than a toy. The October issue of Wild World of Skateboarding featured a complete buyers guide to skateboards including some futuristic designs that will be available in coming months. The newest boards and other skateboarding equipment appear in every issue.
This new sport offers all the excitement and most of the disorienting effects of skiing, surfing, or motorcycling but at a mere fraction of the cost. You have more thrills per dollar available with a quality skateboard than any other single sporting goods or leisure time item. The best skateboards begin at about $40 and go right on up to $140 and more when the board is one of the foam-filled fiberglass types that are built like a hand-laid surf board. Past issues of WWS have included interviews with the best skateboarders in the world regarding their opinions about which type of skateboard is really the best.
Skateboarding even has its own absolute top speed runs each year at Signal Hill (near Long Beach, California) and a new event at the site of the Akron, Ohio soapbox Derby. Streamlined and fully-en-closed skateboards have clocked almost 80-miles-an-hour (the “offi-cial” record is 57 mph). Of course there was coverage of those events in WWS: “coverage that included complete specifications on every skateboard’s weight, length, wheel size and the riders weight as well as personal interviews with present and past champions
Skateboarding is the best “near-the-limits” sport ever o arrive in America. You can match every type of thrill that any other sport offers on a skateboard and all for the price of a single piece of equipment. All of that excitement appears every month in the Wild World of Skateboarding.
Now let’s get to the good stuff. The cover is actually a little boring, but the insides are packed with late 70’s grooviness and art direction. I find the Hurst shifters illustration to be mesmerizing, and imagine the art board was huge and the illustrator hade a giant rack of expensive markers. Theres so many excellent ads and photos, it was hard to limit them, but this is after all a skateboarding site so I did exercise some control.
As classy as the cover is, the insides are packed full of shot shorts, crop tops, bikinis, and real hot rods. The centerfold features an extremely soft focus shot of 70’s TV and skateboarding icon Farrah Fawcett and her “Foxy Vette.” These aren’t full scans, my oversized scanner doenst quite fit a two page spread and since these pages have naught to do with skateboarding, you’re just going have to make do.
1 comment
Paul Graf
WWS was my first skate-mag I ever saw, funny thing is that it was given to me by a kid in Junior High named Frank Thrasher. I liked the magazine just because they gave you lots of “how-to” tips. As a beginner that was invaluable. I ended up getting a 6 month subscription, just enough time before the magazine ended.