Cheap skating for cheapskates

It's odd, but those little retro plastic skateboards must be back. When I was a kid in the '80s, they were deeply uncool and frowned-upon (you had to have a 'proper' deck with the sandpapery surface), but maybe things have changed.

At Kmart, 55cm Southern Star "retro cruiser" skateboards are $15. They seem to come in purple with blue wheels, red with green wheels or blue with red wheels.



Meanwhile at Big Dubs, Mambo skateboards in the same size and style are $20. They come in red, hot pink, orange and yellow, again with contrasting-coloured wheels. I guess you pay an extra $5 for the Mambo brand.

The style is apparently a ripoff of Penny, an Australian brand of plastic skateboards that's been around since 1983 and seems to have a fair bit of cachet in some skating circles.



Considering Penny boards cost upwards of $150, these are very cheap indeed.