From Guitar World · · 3m
How the Flying V flopped, then conquered the guitar world
Gibson's arrowhead guitar sold about 100 units and died in two years, then the blues, psychedelia and metal turned it into an icon.
In brief
Gibson's arrowhead guitar sold about 100 units and died in two years, then the blues, psychedelia and metal turned it into an icon. A design that fails on arrival is not always a bad design. The Flying V never changed much, its audience did. Originally reported by Guitar World.
McCarty's modernist gamble
Gibson's Ted McCarty pushed a 'modernist' line in 1957 and bet on a body shape that could read either as a mistake or as a masterpiece.
“that fine line between a trainwreck and a stroke of genius is exactly what Ted McCarty tapped into”
Korina and an arrowhead
The 1958 original was cut from African korina, with a split headstock and a body that swept back into a dramatic arrowhead. Nothing else on the market came close.
Too radical, then gone
Conservative jazz and country players wanted nothing to do with it. Gibson shipped roughly 100 and quietly pulled the model by 1960.
The 1967 do-over
It returned with mahogany instead of korina, a much larger pickguard, and a stopbar or Vibrola tailpiece. Cheaper to build, easier to sell.
The blues picked it up
Lonnie Mack played a '58 his whole career. Albert King, a lefty, flipped a right-handed korina V upside down and dragged huge bends out of it.
“the way he grabbed those massive, string bends out of his V proved the design had plenty of tone to back up its wild looks”
Hendrix painted his
In the late '60s, Jimi Hendrix hand-painted his '67 Flying V and pulled the shape into psychedelia, blurring what a rock guitar was supposed to look like.
Two brothers, one shape
Rudolf Schenker made the V the Scorpions' visual trademark. His brother Michael turned half-black, half-white Vs into shorthand for blistering solos.
Dean added wings
By the late '70s the Dean V arrived with an oversized wing-shaped headstock and a big string-through V-plate tailpiece. ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons took to it fast.
Rhoads redrew the wings
Randy Rhoads and Grover Jackson built an offset V called the Concorde. Jackson put his own surname on the headstock to shield Charvel if it flopped, and launched a brand by accident.
“The look was so radical that Grover Jackson slapped his own last name on the headstock instead of his established Charvel logo”
Metal made it standard
The Concorde became the Randy Rhoads model that metal has held onto for four decades. Dave Mustaine rode the Jackson King V through most of Megadeth.
Still being rewritten
Dirty Boy's custom 'Dirty V' twists the outline into something meaner, and Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram plays a custom Banker V, taking the shape back to Delta blues.
Thick korina, thin mahogany
Luthier Matt Hughes says the '58s were carved from 1 1/2-inch korina, while the '67s ran 1 3/8 inches and were routed through the middle for that big pickguard.
“that solid construction generates a distinctly snappier midrange and a unique resonance that you simply cannot achieve with thin mahogany”
You wear it, not rest it
A V will not sit politely on your leg, it slides off. Jared James Nichols says you have to pull the body into your frame and stand differently to play it at all.
“It feels less like a guitar and more like a sword.”
Four hundred grand later
Clean 1958 korina Vs now trade like fine art. Joe Bonamassa paid over $400,000 in 2019 for his '58, nicknamed 'Donny J', the most he had ever spent on a guitar.
The key point
A design that fails on arrival is not always a bad design. The Flying V never changed much, its audience did.
