Category: Sagas of Shred

Vintage Body Glove Ad: Sagas of Shred

Greetings, Shredderz! Your Shreditor in Chief is still on the road — not on a surf trip, alas — which means that I’ll be relying on my advanced Google skills to bring you more vintage surf ads. Today’s Sagas of Shred entry features an awesome Seventies Body Glove ad, which you can see pictured above. I found the ad on the Urban Outfitters website, of all places. It seems that UO has done a few surf-themed re-issues lately, including a separate mini-revival of the beloved Gotcha brand.

The notable thing about the Body Glove ad is that it prominently features a few Zephyr Surfboards team riders. Zephyr is the legendary Venice Beach, Los Angeles brand from which modern skateboarding emerged, along with figures like Stacy Peralta, Jay Adams, CR Stecyk, Tony Alva, and more.

The ad features a young Jay Adams (RIP); Nathan Pratt, who would later go on to found the LA-based Horizons West surfboard label; and a fully swagged out Allen Sarlo. (I featured a different Allen Sarlo / Body Glove ad a few weeks back, too.) I can’t tell what kind of board Pratt is holding, but you’ll notice it’s a sting with an unusual dual wing. Adams is toting a swallow tail Zephyr Team single fin, complete with signature Jeff Ho fin; and Sarlo has an absolutely classic Zephyr with what could very well be a CR Stecyk airbrush.

If you’re ever bored just look up a list of all the incredible shapers based out of the South Bay, starting with folks like Bing Copeland and Greg Noll, to Seventies fixtures like Jeff Ho, to current craftsmen like Tyler Hatzikian. California has no shortage of places with a rich history in surfing, but even by that standard, Los Angeles stands out. To me, the story of Zephyr and its incredible influence on skateboarding, surfing, and what we now take for granted as “California culture” is still underrated.

Thanks for reading and we’ll be back next Thursday evening with another vintage surf ad for Sagas of Shred!

Astrodeck Pottz Pro Model

Greetings, Shredderz! Look, I might be on vacation (no surfing for me over the next few weeks, I’m afraid), but Sagas of Shred continues, paid time off or not. I’m away from my trusty stash of vintage Surfer magazines, so I’ll mostly be plucking some choice scans from the internet. Pictured here is a vintage Astrodeck ad featuring none other than Martin Potter AKA Pottz. Sagas of Shred has featured Potter a few times, mostly thanks to his work with Gotcha. The ad you see above also appears to feature the Pottz Pro Model, which was produced by Blue Hawaii, who sponsored Potter after his stint with Town & Country. And why is Pottz holding up a hand like he’s a crossing guard? Your guess is as good as mine. Confusion aside, though, this is an awesome ad featuring some of my favorite fixtures from the late Eighties / early Nineties surf scene, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Mahalo for reading and we’ll be back next Thursday evening with more vintage surf ad scans!

Qantas Stubbies California Surf Trials 1980

Greetings, Shredderz! As always, it’s Thursday night, which can only mean the return of Sagas of Shred. Yes, that means we have a brand new scan of a vintage advertisement for all your surf nostalgia needs. The ad you see above is for the 1980 Qantas / Stubbies California Surf Trials, which apparently took place at Lower Trestles in late August of that year. I don’t know about the contest or who might have won it, but I do love the minimalism of the ad. And who couldn’t like a picture of a koala on a surfboard?!

As always, thanks for reading, and we’ll be back next Thursday for more Sagas of Shred.

Allen Sarlo for Body Glove: Sagas of Shred

Style. Swagger. Gravitas.

What more is there to say about Allen Sarlo in this Body Glove ad?

We’ve featured Wave Killer a few times here on the blog. In fact, Sarlo was kind enough to send the photos that were featured in the second post. The ad you see here originally appeared in the Dec 1980 issue of Surfer Magazine (Vol 21, No 12). You probably guessed this already, but the Con with the Wave Killer laminate is epic enough, and we haven’t even gotten to the matching wetsuit yet! This might be one of my favorite Sagas of Shred posts yet.

Oh, and here’s a friendly reminder to mind your etiquette while surfing Malibu, courtesy of Wave Killer himself:

Thanks for reading and we’ll be back next Thursday evening with more vintage surf ads!

Butch Van Artsdalen for Design 1 / Surf Jet: Sagas of Shred

That’s right, Shredderz: today’s a rare occasion indeed, as there are not one but two posts for your viewing pleasure. Scroll down if you missed the earlier entry, which was the latest installment in our Clipz series. More to the point, today we have another vintage surf ad for you, courtesy of Sagas of Shred. The vast majority of the Sagas entries are scanned by yours truly, but this time I wanted to share something that I found online. I’m not sure where I found this photo, but it’s a scan of an advertisement for Design 1. Design 1 was a short lived surfboard company that was based out of Long Island, of all places, which also happens to be the boyhood home of your Shreditor in Chief. I can attest to the fact that suburban New York City is indeed a long, long way from Pipeline and the fearsome waves of Oahu’s famous North Shore.

Design 1 collected a number of famous surfers to come up with their boards, and Butch Van Artsdalen was one of them. Design 1 was an ambitious project, and despite plowing money into ads like the one you see here, and hiring a star-studded roster of shapers, it didn’t last very long. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have all the details on the history of Design 1, but as a New York native and a fan of surfboard history, I can’t help but feel like there’s a much more intriguing story there.

We’ll be back next Thursday evening, California time, with more vintage surf ads. Mahalo!

Gotcha: Red Hot Surfwear

Greetings, Shredderz! It’s the Fourth of July, and as a patriotic American, I have to confess that I have better things to be doing right now than writing about vintage surf ads. Like having a few drinks before setting off a bunch of explosives in a completely unsupervised setting, for example. But stories don’t get much more American than Michael Tomson’s red hot heyday, followed by his more recent fall from grace. We wish Tomson nothing but the best. Regardless of how you feel about the man, there is no denying his branding genius. I’ve written before about Gotcha’s amazing ad campaigns on this blog. It’s interesting that Tomson features himself in this ad, which was originally published in the September 1980 issue of Surfer Magazine (Vol 21, No 9). My guess is the ad is from the early days of Gotcha, before it found its stride.

Thanks for reading, Happy Fourth of July to everyone, and we hope to see you again next Thursday with more Sagas of Shred!

David Nuuhiwa Body Glove Ad

Greetings, Shredderz! It’s Thursday evening here in sunny California, which can only mean it’s time for Sagas of Shred! Sagas of Shred is the weekly series that features a new vintage surf ad. Today we have David Nuuhiwa representing the venerable Body Glove brand with incredible style and panache. Look at that mane! And that looks like a front zip team issue spring suit, which is a style move for far more advanced practitioners than yours truly. I’m also drawn to the twin fins. The one Nuuhiwa is holding has some laminates I don’t believe I have ever seen before. The board on the ground, meanwhile, has some rad Body Glove logos on the fins. The Body Glove ad featured here originally rain in the August 1980 issue of Surfer Magazine (Vol 21, No 8).

Thanks for reading and we’ll be back in half a fortnight with more vintage surf ads for your reading pleasure!

Lightning Bolt Board Meeting: Sagas of Shred

Here’s a great vintage Lightning Bolt ad from 1980 that originally appeared in Surfer Magazine. I love the corporate goals laid out in the ad (“Surf your brains out! Get tubed!”). Thanks for reading and check back in next Thursday evening for more vintage surf ads.

Vintage Bing Body Glove Ad: Sagas of Shred

Greetings, Shredderz! Unfortunately I’m on a bit of a tight schedule today so I won’t be able to scan any new ads. That said, I’m happy to point you in the direction of an absolutely fantastic Body Glove ad, featuring none other than Bing Copeland. The ad you see above was posted to the Classic Bing Surfboards group on Facebook, which is definitely worth checking out. There’s a nice community of collectors there who show off some really sweet vintage Bing Surfboards. The ad itself was originally posted by Haggerty’s Surf Club on Facebook. Check out the rad Bing Karma board underneath Bing’s knee, too. If I had to guess I would say this ad was published sometime in the late Sixties or early Seventies, but I’m not sure.

Thanks for reading today’s abbreviated entry and we’ll be back with more vintage surf ad scans next Thursday evening.

Larry Bertlemann for Rip Curl: Sagas of Shred

Greetings, Shredderz! I’m hoping maybe some of you caught my Sagas of Shred retrospective on Instagram today. And if you didn’t, don’t worry, because you’re here for the main event. Every week I post a scan of a vintage surf ad, plucked from my stash of vintage Surfer Magazines. Rip Curl has been a fixture of the Sagas of Shred series, thanks more to its roster of team riders over the years, than say the creative brilliance of Gotcha’s ad campaigns. Case in point: last week I wrote up a Rip Curl ad featuring Derek Hynd.

This time around there’s another ad from the venerable Victoria wetsuit brand, but featuring Larry “The Rubberman” Bertlemann. Before I flipped open a magazine just a few minutes ago, I didn’t even know that Bertlemann had ever ridden for Rip Curl. And a very quick and incomplete Google Image search didn’t turn up with any other good photos of Bertlemann rocking any Rip Curl gear, either.

But hey, the Rubberman can be seen not-so-subtly pointing to the Rip Curl logo in the ad you see above, so that should settle it. This ad ran in the May 1980 issue of Surfer Magazine (Vol 21, No 6).

And given that this is a blog about vintage surfboards, you know I’m going to have to geek out on the surfboard. If you look closely, you can see some Byrne logos towards the tail of Larry’s stick. Byrne Surfboards was founded in the Seventies by Australian brothers Phil and Chris. According to the Byrne website, during the Seventies the Byrne brothers were frequent visitors to Hawaii. During this time they struck up working relationships with both Shaun Tomson and Larry Bertlemann. Later on, Phil Byrne would gain even more attention for his collaborations with Tom Carroll.

This Rip Curl ad features the only example I have seen of a Byrne surfboard shaped for Larry Bertlemann. I can only guess that these are quite rare.

Thanks for reading and we’ll be back in a week with more Sagas of Shred!