Latest guitar innovation unfolds

Owen Bailey, Thu 10 May 2007, 3:55 pm BST

What madness is this, exactly? A guitar that folds in half without the need to restring it? Does not compute. Yet this latest take on the folding guitar, the Centerfold from Swedish company DeVillain now has a fancy website with an intriguing FAQ and plenty of pics to demonstrate it going through the motions:

(pic: Paulina Holmgren)

The instrument was recently demo’d at Frankfurt’s Musik Messe, and the company assures us that it not only stays reasonably in tune but it also has plenty of sustain and is entirely hand-made. There will only be 300 available this year.

Are we right to be sceptical? Or is this an elegant answer to the age-old issue of transporting your instrument on a plane? You tell us…