Very rare Japanese Lightning Bolt Surfing Ad, original 1982 Nippon Surfers Nihon

This is an original ad flyer for Lightning Bolt. The same image ran on the back cover of the September 1982 issue of Surfer Magazine (Vol. 23 No. 9). This is not a back page of the magazine but a stand alone piece with a blank back as shown in photo. It is in near mint condition with bright colors and minimum signs of handling as shown in photos.

Size: approximately 21cm x 27 cm (8-1/2" x 11")

Surfers depicted include Mikio Azahara, Yoshinori Ueda, Yoshitaka Saitoh, and Fumiyoshi Watanabe.

For a good chunk of the Eighties, the Lightning Bolt brand staked out the primo real estate on the back cover of Surfer Magazine. The end result was a pretty inspired set of ads.

There’s something really rad about this Eighties Japanese Lightning Bolt ad, whether it’s the Japanese text — or the simple color scheme. Many might say that Lightning Bolt’s glory days were squarely in the Seventies, defined by Gerry Lopez’s effortless styling at Pipeline.

A PURE SOURCE AROUND THE WORLD

The Lightning Bolt Team came to life in the early 70’s on Hawaii’s North Shore, energized by the challenge of Pipeline’s massive tubes and by each individual’s drive to create more progressive surfing equipment to tap that energy source. The resulting combination of dynamic surfers and ideas added up to more than the sum of its parts…and the known limits of wave riding were greatly expanded.

In the ongoing tradition of that first Pipeline crew, Team Bolt Japan joins our honored group of international surfers; each one a proud contribution to the constantly expanding energy of the whole. That’s what Team Bolt is all about.