Destructo

Destructo doesn’t make decks: it makes trucks. If you landed here looking for a board, there isn’t one — what there is, is cast aluminium trucks, made in the USA and sold with a lifetime guarantee. The brand wears its age on its sleeve, with a permanent banner across its site reading “30 years of being a hooligan - born in 1996” and a line repeated across half the store: “Anarchy in the UK since 1996”.

History

The origin story is half British, half American, and Destructo doesn’t hide it: the thirtieth-anniversary Hooligan 6.0 is sold literally as “Born in the U.K. and raised in the USA”. Sidewalk, the English magazine, put it exactly the same way back in 2012: “Destructo Trucks. Born in England, raised in the USA”. Who actually founded it, though, is nowhere on record — neither the brand’s own site nor any open press archive gives a name, and we couldn’t confirm which distributor handles it today either.

The British chapter is documented from the inside. Alan Glass, marketing manager at UK distributor Shiner, told Slam City Skates in 2025 that Tom Knox used to get Destructo trucks “direct or just through Shiner” until the distributor dropped the brand and Knox switched to Independent. Today the operation runs out of South Gate, south of Los Angeles, and the trucks are made in the States — “made in the concrete jungle of SoCal”, as they put it.

The team

Destructo publishes no roster, but the press has left a trail. Kareem Campbell joined in 2007 according to Sidewalk, with a signature truck promised. Jake Johnson had his own footage for the brand in 2010, posted by Thrasher. The UK arm put out clips from Tom Knox, Jess Young, Paul Regan and Will Golding between 2010 and 2013. Arto Saari is tied in directly too: the D2 was developed with him.

The trucks: D1 and D2

Two model lines, and the brand insists the D2 isn’t an update on the D1 but a completely different truck.

• D1: the original geometry. It claims the lowest kingpin in the game and a quick, responsive turn. The Mid stands 56 mm tall, the Low 48 mm. It runs Hollowpoint kingpins — 30% lighter and 1/8” shorter so they don’t snag on grinds.
• D2: developed with Arto Saari. It sits at 52 mm, slightly lower than the D1, with less kingpin clearance and a more turn-oriented geometry built around a dual conical bushing setup. Every D2 has a hollow kingpin, plus a “ballistic” aluminium baseplate and hanger.

Widths run from 4.75 for groms up to 6.0 (for 8.5”-9.0” decks), taking in 5.0, 5.25, 5.5 and 5.75. Bushings come in 80A soft, 85A medium and 90A hard. Both lines carry the lifetime guarantee.

Who it’s for

If your pet hate is a kingpin snagging on slappies and grinds, the D1 is one of the cleanest trucks out there for it. If you want something that turns and takes impact, take the D2. It isn’t for anyone after a brand with a big team and a video every season — this is product first and not much else. And it isn’t for anyone after a deck.

Before you pick a height and a width, it’s worth reading the hi vs lo trucks guide.