As an absolute kook of a man - please tell me why DLX markets shapes that are supposed to be correct, but then aren’t?
And then tell me why TrueFit is a marketable thing? Shouldn’t they have made every board be true to measure from the beginning?
Why not just call them shorter shorts for shorties?
It is a funny thing, some are wider, some are not as wide, when measured against their size stickers. The 8.38 is more like 8.5 and the 8.5 x 31.8 is more like 8.3 wide, just for starters.
As to what, how, why or anything else, who knows, but even one old blue eagle I have from way back is actually 8.5 wide and definitely has more width than a current blue eagle I got not too long ago, just to check and compare shapes and sizes, so somewhere along the way, something changed and it stayed that way.
I also saw the newer 8.75 boards are now listed as 32.5 long, which seems correct, as they were listed as longer on the sticker, but all the other dimensions were correct.
Sometimes too the taper of a board will make people think it is different, eg the 8.5 x 31.8 and the 8.75 boards have a lot of taper, but the 8.38 and 8.62 are straight through and stay wider than the comparable boards when put back to back.
As to the Tru Fit shapes, I guess like anything they had to get a catchy name for the change, but the main thing is for smaller people to have a smaller board, specifically the length and wheelbase, as there are a lot of skaters of shorter or smaller stature.
Being a taller individual, I prefer the existing shapes and bigger boards, but I have already seen a few people benefit from the Tru Fit boards, so there was definitely a market for it.