Independent Truck Company is a skateboard truck manufacturer based in Santa Cruz, California established in 1978, owned by NHS, Inc. The trucks are manufactured by Ermico Enterprises, Inc. in the city of San Francisco, the only dedicated skateboard truck foundry in the USA.
The company was co-founded by Richard Novak, Jay Shiurman, Fausto Vitello, and Eric Swenson in 1978, and the first set of trucks to make a public appearance was the Stage 1 on May 23, 1978 in Newark CA. According to original team rider Rick Blackhart, the Independent truck (or Indy) was designed as a response to the lack of good skateboard trucks on the market at the time; Blackhart stated that, of the two main other truck companies on the market, ' one broke, and one didn’t turn ', referring to Bennett Trucks and Tracker Trucks, respectively..[1]
The iconic logo for the trucks, the Alisee cross (a variant of the Cross pattée and often mistaken for the Iron Cross), was inspired by an image of Pope John Paul II who was wearing the icon on his vestment in TIME magazine. It has remained the Independent logo since inception.[1]