Greetings, Shredderz! This is a 1985 ad for Spirit, which is a surf shop / surfboard label based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I don’t know much about the label, but I do know that marketing shots do not get any cooler than posing in front of Rio’s famous Christ the Redeemer statute with a couple of boards.

I think surfing is likely to look back and cringe at its treatment of Brazilian surfers. Surfing has never been particularly friendly to outsiders of any kind, and for a long time, Brazilian pros were regarded with skepticism, if not outright contempt. This suspicion is particularly amusing to me in light of how Brazil and its culture are almost universally admired outside of the very small and insular bubble of pro surfing. The anti Brazilian sentiment in surfing seems to have largely faded, for what its worth, and I hope to see even more stories about the surf scene there continue to emerge.