Musical Instruments: Six-String Hot Rods

Kent Bancroft

02/01/2007

The vintage auto collector and the vintage guitar collector share an eerily similar discernment. They both care about serial numbers, dates of manufacture, illustrious provenances, rare colors, and other such details. Since cars have always had a mutually supportive relationship with rock and roll, these collectors might just be one and the same. And in the same way that high demand drives the valuation of concours-quality automobiles ever higher, recent years have seen the value of vintage musical instruments—particularly electric guitars—skyrocket. Thus, interest in finding the high-quality and highly collectible guitars of the future has never been higher. The desire to own such rare instruments has now reached even collectors who are not musicians.

The Shelby-inspired guitar and amplifier set, uses design elements from a 1965 Shelby GT350. The amplifier is a Mesa Boogie F30 that was taken apart then reassembled and reworked with details that fit the package. (Click images to enlarge)

Many collectors look to Mark Johnson, owner of MJ Guitar Engineering, an electric guitar manufacturer whose instruments already enjoy high values. Johnson has developed a niche, building pieces at the nexus of the automobile and the guitar. “I have always loved cars,” he says. “It seemed to me that rock and roll and the car are inseparable, so why not combine them more directly?” Johnson began building guitars more than 30 years ago, and among his first car-theme projects was a guitar he painted to look like a Checker cab.

While the inspiration for many of these “Car Guitars” comes from Johnson himself, others are commissions from customers with specific desires to honor a car or replicate an auto design in guitar form. “I generally let clients establish a starting point,” he says, “a theme like make, model, color, and something of special meaning. Then I take it from there. I try to help them understand that the best possible results come when you let the artist create and the project evolve.” And evolve they do, into fastidiously detailed instruments. All of the work on these special custom shop guitars is done by hand. “I first come up with a rough concept,” says Johnson. “Then I select the appropriate material. If it’s going to be metal, I like to use brass and aluminum because they machine, polish, and plate easily.” He has a machine shop where he works like a sculptor with a block of marble, carving away at each individual component to reveal a unique artistic vision.

The hot rod guitar, bottom, borrows many features from mid-’60s muscle cars and was intended to capture an era rather than a certain car. The Chevy Malibu guitar, top and middle, shown in progress, was fashioned after a client’s personal love of a specific automobile make and model. (Click images to enlarge)

A client recently commissioned a guitar and amplifier set based on his 1965 Ford Shelby GT350. The guitar has the GT350 logo on its sides, and the amplifier’s handle is a real 1965 Mustang door handle. Portholes reminiscent of the Shelby’s exhaust system and a white-and-blue paint job complete the Shelby package. Another client came to Johnson with an idea for a guitar based on a 1964 Chevy Malibu. Replicating a rear quarter panel of the car in wood, the guitar includes a working taillight, a radio that houses the volume and tone controls, and a wheel, rim, and tire. At a cost of $50,000, this project exemplifies the extreme concepts Johnson can realize.

For those without a specific design in mind, consider a hot rod guitar—currently available for $10,000—that is a blue-and-white two-tone electric with piston-style controls, a gearshift pickup selector, and 327 Chevy head pickup covers. Various hot rod stickers line the edges of the souped-up six-string.

As for future projects, Johnson says, “I have so many ideas, I couldn’t possibly live long enough to do every one of them. I would like to do a ’65 GTO guitar and an amplifier to go along with it that looks like a 389 on an engine stand. I want to do a pinball-theme guitar, a ’59 Cadillac, a woody.” And there are more. “I proposed we do a guitar that commemorated the first privately owned space flight; the 70th anniversary of Ferrari; a Golden State Warriors guitar. The possibilities are endless.” And Johnson does not worry about anyone stealing his ideas. “There isn’t a bag big enough to haul them all away,” he says with a laugh. “Besides, there are more where they came from.” 

MJ Guitar Engineering, 406.388.6072, www.mjguitar.com