The company was co-founded by Richard Novak, Jay Shiurman, Fausto Vitello, and Eric Swenson and the Stage 1 model was the inaugural product, released on May 23, 1978 in Newark, California, US. The Independent truck (or "Indy") was designed as a response to the lack of quality skateboard trucks on the market at the time. In reference to the two other major truck companies on the market, Blackhart stated that one broke, and one didn't turn (Bennett Trucks and Tracker Trucks, respectively).

In January 2013, a brief video part was released to publicly announce that prominent professional skateboarder and entrepreneur, Tony Hawk, had joined the Independent Truck Company roster—Hawk was identified as the second most influential skateboarder of all time by Transworld Skateboarding magazine in December 2011. The video was released on YouTube's RIDE Channel, one of Hawk's various enterprises, and Hawk was previously sponsored by the Theeve truck company.

The iconic logo for the trucks, the Alisee cross (often mistaken for the Iron Cross, the logo is actually a variant of the Cross pattée), was inspired by an image of Pope John Paul II, who was wearing the icon on his vestment in an edition of TIME magazine. It has remained the Independent logo since the company's inception.

As of 2012, four team riders have consistently released signature professional model trucks for the company: Andrew Reynolds, Eric Koston, Chris Haslam, and Geoff Rowley. Christian Hosoi released a guest signature truck in the winter catalogue of the company's products.