Independent

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.
The iconic logo for the trucks, the round cross (often mistaken for the Iron Cross), came out in 1979, when Pope John Paul II was wearing the icon on his vestment on the cover of time magazine June 18 1979. It has remained the independent logo since inception.