The link between guitars
and cars has been discussed
often. Who among us doesn’t
love swoopy sports cars, sick bobber
bikes, or wicked hot rods?
Flashy and loud, brimming with
sex appeal, and plenty of geeky,
mechanical specs to discuss—instruments and vehicles share
many of the same characteristics.
I’ve spent countless weekends at
custom car shows or concours
and vintage races while ogling
fine machinery. Not surprisingly,
I find that parallels exist right
down to the way we personalize
and modify our toys, as well as
the attitudes about doing so.
In the automotive world,
performance is what it’s all
about. Pumping up the intake
pressure with turbos and superchargers
to gain horsepower
(can you say preamp?), or tuning
an exhaust (choosing the
right speaker cab) is just the
beginning. We like to have
controls in easy reach to negotiate
tricky twists or turns, and
pedals underfoot to jam on
the brakes or power through
straight passages. As you can
see, I’m already letting my
worlds collide.
Today, performance mods
aren’t considered radical, but
almost a right. Everyone wants
an edge over the competition, or
maybe a little push over the cliff
to get one’s creative juices flowing.
The game was on when big-band
guitarists started stuffing
phonograph needles into their
guitars. Performance was what
Randy Smith had in mind when
he created cascading preamp
sections for the first Boogies. It’s
what Jeff Beck (coincidentally
an automobile hot-rodder himself)
sought when he removed
the covers from his Les Paul
humbuckers to get a sonic leg
up. Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs
heaped extra pickups onto their
semi-hollowbodies back in the
heyday of Haight-Ashbury. Not
to be outdone, Quicksilver’s John
Cipollina wove a dozen amps,
cabinets, and controls together
for his signature sound. A decade
later, Edward Van Halen jammed
a naked humbucker into his
striped, hot-rodded guitar to get
the sound he couldn’t buy off-the-shelf. Like dropping a hemi
into a ’32 Ford, the replacement
pickup is the musical equivalent
of a motor transplant—the staple
of a hot-rodder’s vernacular.
Playing at your best requires
you to be at ease with your
instrument. The notes must fall
beneath your fingers without
difficulty. Similarly, rodders
often modify vehicles to provide
a pleasing or responsive ride.
Even at the beginning of the
electric guitar era, the lines were
blurred between disciplines.
Soon after the whammy bar was
invented, Paul Bigsby and Leo
Fender began to make tweaks to
the design. Bigsby, a motorcycle
fabricator himself, created elaborate,
raw aluminum tremolo
arms reminiscent of his Crocker
motorcycle shifters. To improve
comfort and fit, Fender curved
and scalloped the bodies of the
Stratocaster and Jazzmaster until
they flowed like the long hoods
of European racing cars. Indeed,
one such 1960s design was
named Jaguar and another, the
Mustang, was adorned with racing
stripes. Clearly, the pioneers
of American electrics understood
the relationship between
guitars and cars.
Personalization of material
property is as old as creation,
so why should instruments be
immune? From the simple act
of applying a sticker to elaborate
inlays, engraving, or airbrushing
graphics—guitars mimic vehicles
in every way. Musicians see themselves
as individual snowflakes and
there’s no better way to prove it—
except playing—than accessorizing
guitars. Like jewelry for your
axe, there are countless hardware
choices. Functional or merely
cosmetic, the simple act of replacing
a guitar’s knobs, pickguard, or
tuners can be a statement of identity
similar to aftermarket wheels
on a pimped ride.
Some would argue that it’s
sacrilege to corrupt a design from
its stock configuration. This is a
debate that can be heard at car
shows as well as vintage guitar
festivals. In 1988, for example, a
1973 Porsche 911 was merely a
15-year-old, used, foreign sports
car. Then the Miami Vice crowd
tore them apart and rebuilt
them with bigger motors, sloped
noses, fat fender-flares, and giant
whale-tail spoilers. Rolling on
their ultra-wide, gold-colored
wheels, these modified icons of
’80s style can now be had for the
cost of an entry-level Toyota. In
contrast, had such an example
been left in its original form, it
could be worth four times that
amount—or more.
Similarly, it was common in
the ’70s to strip the finish off guitars
for a more “natural” appearance.
I recall using Zip-Strip to
remove the olympic white finish
from my early ’60s J bass, reckoning
the bare lumber would
better complement my band’s
earthy vibe. I was personalizing
my axe—which was just a $300
used instrument at the time—
and the practice was consistent
with the trend of the day. I was
oblivious to the fact that in both
the automotive and instrument
world, a time-worn original is
worth much more than a restored
repaint—even with original parts
intact. That Zip-Strip melted
thousands of dollars off the J’s
future value, but at the time, I
was happy in my ignorance.
The choice to modify any
possession to make it more distinctive
is a personal decision.
There are those who have no use
for an original 1932 Ford, but
would cherish a chopped and
channeled rat-rodded version.
In turn, a 1956 Strat without a
Floyd Rose might be useless to
a metal guitarist. Is performance
or vanity in the here-and-now
more or less important than an
uncertain future value? If I had
it to do over again, would I have
left my bass white?
Jol Dantzig is a
noted designer, builder,
and player who co-founded
Hamer Guitars,
one of the first boutique
guitar brands, in 1973.
Today, as the director of
Dantzig Guitar Design, he continues to
help define the art of custom guitar. To
learn more, visit
guitardesigner.com.