There are rabbit holes and then there are all engulfing black holes of time wasting. I Had an idea to do a quick post about a clear plexiglass skateboard from Huffy from the 70’s that I thought was interesting. Huffy sure wasn’t the first bicycle company to get int o skateboarding (probably ACS,) and wasn’t the last one (Haro) either. My buddy Shawn still has his first skateboard, a wooden Huffy Quick Thunder. I asked him to send me some pics for the post and decided to dig up what I could in the meantime. It turns out they made a host of plastic and wooden skateboards (some in the 80’s), and even a fiberglass model, not to mention some prepackaged accessories. I had over 80 photographs, so I’m going to break them in to 3 or 4 posts by category, starting with the plastic boards.

Yeah, I’ve never heard of Thor Skateboards before, and neither has Michiel Walrave, except for this one. This Punk Skull (as I imagine it would be called) model is a rebranded Valterra – the deck is Valterra (same shape as one of their Skate Zombie shapes), the trucks, wheels, plastics…all Valterra. I now wonder if this graphic was used first under the Valterra umbrella. I’ve seen a lesser quality dept store board with the same graphic before. Either way, super rad looking mid 80s tank. Agreed. Michel has a massive collection of obscure toy store and D-list brand skateboards. Check out @michielwalrave for more.

Like many things (most) on this site, this post started out as a relatively simple showcase of a board from Michiel Walrave to add to the crappy board series. And because it was a company I’d never heard of I tried to learn a little more about it and found out there are barely any pics old AISI boards out there. You might think maybe it’s actually “AISL” and not “AISI” but those searches returned nothing. UPDATE: 2026 – several of these decks can be found in the Athena International catalog. Also added two decks: The Rattler and Skull.

As a kid I can remember seeing ads like this in the back of comic books and other publications aimed at adolescents. The gas is, you send away for some sort of sales kit, most likely a catalog and some motivational text, and then you could sell greeting cards and who knows what else to all your neighbors and extended family in hopes of earning enough credit to get some free stuff from the advert. It was your job to take the orders, collect the money, send it to the company and then deliver everything when they mailed it to you. This scheme for using a child labor farm sourced from comic books has been around for a long time, probably dating back to the 40’s with Grit, which amazingly, is still a thing. The practice of bribing kids with the potential to earn prizes probably had it’s heyday during the 60’s and 70’s. Here are 2 examples from the late 80’s and early 90’s in which you can earn a Nash or Variflex skateboard.

Check out this early 80’s “Street Sucker” from the Netherlands. The graphic and two-tone wheels look like something distinctly American, although there is no visible company name to be found. – Thanks to Michiel Walrave for the pic.

When a plain old skateboard isn’t enough and you need to add a motorized sound to get the kids excited, the Irwin corporation has you covered. The advert is most likely from a 1965-66 Playthings Magazine, an industry publication for toy retailers. A suggested retail of $1.98 ( Under $17 according to the US Inflation Calculator) would have gotten you a noisy plastic sled that didn’t really turn. Fun! Time to “cash in on this surfboarding business.” Order your Whoom-m Jr. Sidewalk Surfer now! Thanks to Darren Haugen for the pics.

Sure, it’s been 11 years since we posted a Nash Sound Board, but there have been new archeological developments thanks to reader Vivi Kristensen.  This version of the Sound Board has moved the radio compartment from the tail to just behind the front trucks, and all mention of the Nash brand on the board graphic has been removed. However, the radio compartment still bears the Nash logo mark. This radio was no doubt perfect for listening to The Rest of the Story with Paul Harvey during a heated vert session.  It’s unclear how on earth you’re supposed to tune this radio. Looks like a set it and forget it situation. All so quaint compared to modern day implementations even if it did take 30 years to improve on it.

What is this thing? Is it an ollie trainer, or is it just a regular ole Maui and Sons skateboard that some eccentric nut decided to make even more dangerous by replacing the trucks with giant springs? I’m not sure what you could actually do with this, besides try to sell it on Ebay. This appears to be the “Thrasher Sharkson” pro model. Thanks to Matthijs for the tip.

Pure crap or Pure Genius? In the late 80’s I wouldn’t have been caught dead on a Variflex board, now I kind of want to make a t-shirt out of this old sticker design.  The post on the Variflex XP series still gets a lot of traffic, but I’d never seen a Spittle board… until I googled it after writing that last sentence. I found one from Ebay seller toddtwist, AKA Sean Goff. Turns out the Spittle board looks semi-legit. This one sold for a killing at $280 considering NOS Variflex XP series were going for $70 8 years ago. Art of Skateboarding dates this board to 1988, and they’ve got one in a nice white colorway. UPDATE: Justin Goetz has a mind like steel trap. He recognized this deck from an old Lance Mountain column in the November, 1989 issue of Transworld. It’s actually a pro model for Michel Spitalhouse. I added scans to the end of the post.

Instead of my usual Random Florida Spot Check, this year I’m bringing you Random Crap Skateboard. These were spotted at a store called 5 Below, which is like an upscale Dollar Store if that’s even possible. Surprisingly, the wheels on these things actually roll.