Turbo II: Licensed or Skatewing Bootleg?

I thought I’d seen every option of the Skatewing until I saw a post with this Turbo II branded abomination called the “Scorpy.” One thing you’ll notice right away is that the Turbo II version has rounded casters on the wings instead of the single, fixed skateboard wheels. Turbo II was a toy store brand skateboard popular in the UK. Digging around on the internet shows that they like to approximate some popular designs to evoke those designs without violating copyright. Maybe the caster wheels were the same kind of attempt to avoid a patent dispute, although it’s hard to imagine that the Skating was ever popular enough to make someone think it would be a good idea to copy it.

According to Jason Gibbons, “Turbo II completes with wings sold for around £12 originally in the UK, circa 1989. They had those hard slidey wheels (pvc?) that didn’t roll at all. They were made in dodgy plywood in Taiwan, we had them without the wings before, same brand for £10. Every part was terrible.” So yeah, quality stuff as expected.

These 3 pictures are courtesy of Nathan Towriss.

Here’s a couple from a Croatian auction.

How about a couple Scorpy decks without wings? These are from various European auction sites.

Now we’re entering that phase in crappy toy store boards where we can’t tell who is copying who. Notice the top graphic of the yellow Scorpy is the samosa some of those “American Sports Services – Barry E. Smith” skateboards.

Digging Ito some other Turbo II graphics. This one is reminiscent of a cross between a Haro and Variflex graphic.

I can’ tell exactly what is going on here. It might be a skeleton in a diaper.

Here’s a couple Turbo II’s from an auction. They appear to be emulating the famous Santa Cruz skateboarding cop graphics, and Theo there one? I’m not sure. Under duress I’d say it had a Billy Ruff vibe.

Here’s one that seems to be made out of collage of mail-order skate shop adverts. Oddly familiar.

And finally, the icing on the cake, low-res photos of what looks to be a cross between Santa Cruz Rob Roskopp and a Powell Ripper, as seen on Tshirtslayer. This was the only phots I could find of this treasure.