If the following news story gives you a little déjà vu then it is both understandable and thematically appropriate, because Gibson has just unveiled its previously teased Back To The Future ES-345, and there’s a Epiphone version, too, with both launched in time to celebrate the movie’s 40th anniversary.
The year 1985 has loomed large over the Gibson universe in recent months. In June, it launched its global campaign to hunt down the actual ES-345 that Michael J Fox as Marty McFly played in the movie – an electric guitar that has been missing since the shoot wrapped. They even hired the investigative journalists who found Paul McCartney’s missing bass guitar after over 50 years. The search is still ongoing.
It seemed the obvious play that, whether they found the original ES-345 or not, they would not let the 40th anniversary of Robert Zemeckis’ blockbuster go unmarked. Then lo, Gibson CEO and president Cesar Gueikian teased on Instagram the guitars it has launched today.
That tease told us a lot – that these models with similarly have the factory anomaly at the 12th fret, that where all the inlays were split celluloid parallelograms the 12th had a solid inlay, that there would be a super high-end version from the Custom Shop, and that Gibson were playing ball with the movie’s anachronisms, naming this a "1955" ES-345, just like in the movie, when we all know that the ES-345 wasn’t released until 1959.
As Gibson notes, the producers got the guitar from Norman's Rare Guitars and he told them the dates would be out. But hey, this was the movies, and it looked just right for the scene.
“During a high school dance in 1955, a Gibson guitar helped change the course of music history – and even rewrote history itself – in one unforgettable cinematic moment,” reads the Gibson blurb. “The ES-345 model featured in Back to the Future became an icon and bridged the past, present, and future in a way that only a great instrument can.”
Well, they’re here now, and for Back To The Future superfans with deep pockets, this Collector’s Edition, Light Aged by the Murphy Lab, has to be the high-end electric guitar release of the year. It is stunning.
You have a pair of unpotted Gibson Custombucker Alnico III humbuckers at the neck and bridge, the dual volume, dual tone controls and three-way pickup selector, and you have the Varitone switch wired in mono. Under the hood it is as per Gibson’s Custom Shop prestige builds, with paper-in-oil capacitors, CTS pots, all hand-wired.
The Back To The Future details are there but you have to look for them, such as on the back of the headstock, where you will find a Hill Valley Music dealer plaque, or in the guitar case itself – it’s a doozy [sorry, wrong movie] from Lifton with a Marvin Berry and The Starlighters graphic. There’s a box of case candy; this comes with everything but Dr Emmett Brown’s modded DeLorean.
We have commemorative guitar picks, a guitar strap, a Casio wristwatch (a crucial part of any time traveller’s rig), a poster for the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance, a certificate of authenticity, keys to the DeLorean… Just try to remember where it’s parked, not to mention when it was parked.
There is even a ‘Re-elect Goldie Wilson’ mayoral campaign badge and a Flux Capacitor case light.
But the guitar itself is a beaut. It’ll do Johnny B. Goode or whatever formative rock ’n’ roll with ‘80s hard-rock twists you can think of. It is also a heck of a blues guitar.
The thinline body is three-ply maple/poplar/maple, with a solid maple centreblock to nix feedback. The mahogany neck is glued to the body with a long neck tenon, and is shaped into a Thin D profile authentic to 1961 specifications, topped with a 12” radius dark rosewood fingerboard.
There’s aged gold hardware to complement that Light Aged Cherry Red nitro finish, with Kluson tuners, an ABR-1 No-Wire bridge, and the all-important Bigbsy ’59 B7 vibrato.
All in, this will set you back £17,449. It is a limited edition, of course. Gibson are making just 88 of them. Why 88? Because 88 miles-per-hour was the speed required for time travel.
If the Collector’s Edition is a bit steep, and let’s face it, for most of us it is, then it is some compensation that this cinematic tie-in translates just as nicely to an Epiphone guitar.
This, too, is a limited edition model, limited to 1985 units, the year the movie came out, and as per the Gibson-owned brand’s higher-end models, it has a very respectable spec.
There is gold hardware and a Cherry Red finish, to which you will have to do your own ageing. There is a pair of Epiphone Alnico Classic PRO humbuckers and the wiring loom includes that mono Varitone switch. This will do a lot of tones.
It might not have the Flux Capacitor case light but it does have a brown hard-shell guitar case with the commemorative graphic, and it looks the part too. Gibson has not only given this the 12th fret solid inlay as you’d expect, but also the plaque on the back of the headstock. At £949, it’s a pretty sweet deal.
There’s also a range of Back To The Future x Gibson merch, T-shirts, pick tins, a guitar strap, and an AXE HEAVEN Mini Guitar replica. You can find out more over at Gibson.
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