World Industries Vallely Elephant On Cliff Deck

The World Industries Vallely Elephant On Cliff Deck was released in 1989. It was the first of Mike V’s Pro Models with World Industries.

• Mike Vallely Pro Model
• Circa 1989

In the words of Mike Vallely in 2003:

After leaving Powell Peralta I knew I wanted to maintain an elephant graphic on my board. In a short amount of time the elephant had become synonymous with me and Rocco and Rodney Mullen agreed that my first graphic from World should incorporate an elephant. I don’t quite remember the inspiration for the graphic, I guess it had something to do with my state of mind or how I saw myself at the time. Leaving Powell Peralta was a big deal and caused shock waves in the industry. Powell was trying to blacklist me from the magazines and most people thought I had committed career suicide by joining up with Rocco. So, there’s my elephant standing on a crumbling edge of a cliff determined to survive it somehow.

The graphic was done by a friend of Rodney’s from Florida and the board was shaped by Buster Halterman who along with Tom Boyle I was personally sponsoring through World. World did not officially sponsor vert skaters but I was skating a lot of vert with these guys in Pennsylvania and they were two of my favorite guys to skate with and watch ride. Buster couldn’t ride any of the existing World shapes so I allowed him to shape my board for me so that World was manufacturing a board that he could ride.