9/14/12

Tom Sims 1950-2012




Sims Tom Jumps Porche Vintage skateboard Calstreets
































































Tom Sims jumping a Porsche, circa 1975
from the MacGillivray-Freeman film Five Summer Stories.
Image courtesy Tom Sims.
The list goes on with many more VERY important skateboarders from the 70's. I went on the Merv Griffin Show as World Champion to promote skateboarding in 1976. I jumped over a Porsche while riding my skateboard in the movie Five Summer Stories by MacGillivray Freeman Films. I was in the big screen movie 'Skateboard' and did several other skateboarding films. I was in the Guinness World

Tom Sims shaping skateboards on Mountain Drive in Montecito 1975


























Tom Sims shaping boards on Mountain Drive in Montecito, circa 1975.
Photo courtesy Tom Sims.

Records book in 1976. I did the Movie Freewheelin with Stacy Peralta, I hired Stacy to do a SIMS movie long before he was the ICON he is. Tony Hawk rode SIMS before Stacy scooped him up. SIMS WAS the 70's, and I am saddened by reading your draft. Even George Powell's recollection of the Pacific Palisades encounter is not accurate. He put my signature on the Quicksilver deck as a way to get into the skateboard market, and then never paid me a royalty or thanked me once he got some market share to go it alone. SIMS WAS the center of the skateboard universe from 1975 to 1979 and that is not just my observation, but reality.

One of the only real threats to SIMS other than Logan Earth Ski during that time frame came from Dogtown and Alva. After Jim Muir left SIMS to start making Dogtown trademark skateboards he became a major player in the industry.

With all due respect, I knew once I read that you were going up to see Novak, that this would happen. It is called “Novak Skateboard Spin 101,” and he does it really really well, and very convincingly when mocking SIMS and elevating Santa Cruz and Road Riders to mythical levels. I guess the victor gets to write the history books after all, just as some famous person once said: Novak always gets the last laugh! (That is not my quote). He is a tough cookie, just like the time he recruited Shaw Kaake - my head of engineering for snowboards - or the time he bought thousands of SIMS German Precision bearings behind my back - selling them to MY customers. Or the time he took one of my top snowboard team riders Chris Roach simultaneously stealing my snowboard binding design so he could launch Santa Cruz snowboards.

I never saw George Powell or Rich Novak actually ride a skateboard, these guys were businessmen, not skateboarders, so I got taken for a ride more than once.


ORIGINAL SIMS-Tom Sims Explains His Obsession With Skateboarding
Greenmount Rd Fall 1964
Tom Sims skating Greenmount Rd fall 1964






































http://www.calstreets.com/skateboard/index.php?/70s-80s-History-Timeline-Interviews/tom-sims-interview-reality-check-qthe-truth-exposedq/Sims-Team-Paramount-Park.html




Pool riding with Lonnie Toft and Surfing with George Trafton one of the original members of the 1965 Hobie Skateboard Team hanging at Topanga Beach.


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