Thunder

Thunder doesn’t make decks. It makes trucks, and along with Independent it’s one of the two heritage US truck brands most street skaters have grown up bolting under their boards. Where the heavier ramp trucks of the era were built for speed and stability, Thunder went the other way from the start: lighter, quicker to turn, tuned for technical street skating.

History

Thunder was already running ads in Thrasher by January 1982 and has been going in San Francisco ever since; Deluxe Distribution was founded in 1986, partly to distribute it, which makes it the oldest brand in the Deluxe Distribution family, the same house that runs Spitfire, Real, Anti-Hero, Krooked and Venture. It grew out of the Ermico/Independent orbit in the mid-80s, tying it directly to Fausto Vitello, and it has stayed part of Deluxe ever since. The distributor runs the operation out of 120 Mississippi Street in San Francisco.

Cast in San Francisco

The trucks come out of the Ermico Enterprises foundry in San Francisco, the same US foundry that pours Independent and Venture. Ace’s Joey Tershay confirmed that shared casting in Jenkem. To this day the trucks are still cast in the USA rather than farmed out overseas, which keeps Thunder tied to the Ermico/Independent lineage it came from.

Light, fast, and the Hi/Mid/Lo system

Two ideas define the range. The first is weight: the hollow kingpin on the Thunder Hollow, and later the Lights line, are engineered to shed grams without giving up strength. The second is the Hi/Mid/Lo geometry system, which lets you match truck height to wheel size and the way you skate. Lo is the go-to for tech flip skating, Hi gives bigger wheels more clearance. The lightning-bolt wordmark on the hanger is the giveaway in any spot check. Signature product runs deep too, with Marc Johnson’s Forever Lights colorways a long-running fixture at retail.

The team

The documented 2012 roster read like a street-skating who’s-who: Ed Templeton, Chima Ferguson, Mikey Taylor, Chris Miller, Collin Provost, Chris Cole, Justin Brock, Mark Appleyard and Neen Williams. More recently the team has centered on Jamie Foy, Nora Vasconcellos, Tyshawn Jones, Ishod Wair and Miles Silvas, with Kyron Davis among the newer additions. Rosters shift, so treat the current names as a snapshot. One bit of Thunder trivia worth keeping: an early Ed Templeton ad showed him doing a handrail 50-50, cited as one of the first images of handrail skating ever printed.

Whatever deck you bolt them to, a set of Thunders is one of the safest calls you can make.