It's fair to say that Charvel was the first company to popularise the idea of a wholly custom-made guitar for the rocking masses and, as was the prevailing wind in Southern California circa 1980, the more outrageous the design of your guitar the more likely your band was to be noticed.

Now, the original hotrods are back, in a range of eye-popping limited finishes with necks to die for. The best news of all is that the sub-£1000 price tag means that more players than ever before can afford a piece of the action...

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