Teased at NAMM 2026, launched today, and retooled by popular demand, Gibson’s Victory is now officially available with a Floyd Rose vibrato, which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense.
The Victory was an ‘80s experiment by Gibson, the brand behind the Golden Era icons dipping its toe into the unorthodoxy of high-performance design at a time when shred fever was gathering.
Having brought the revised and refreshed Victory back in 2024 with a Tune-O-Matic bridge and stop-bar tailpiece, Gibson had found something that worked.
It was a hit. There was something about that offset double-cut shape, allied to the recognisably Gibson design touchstones – the six-in-line Explorer-style headstock, a figured maple top, and the SlimTaper neck – that resonated with players.
But why not a Floyd Rose? For many players, a high-performance electric guitar is not a high-performance electric guitar without one. Well, the Victory has one now – and besides that, it’s pretty much an identical guitar to its 2024 forebears.
Gibson is offering it in Iguana Burst, Translucent Ebony Burst and Deep Ocean Burst, all finish options which flatter the guitars’ AA-grade figured maple tops. The bodies are solid mahogany, as are the necks, which are glued-in, with a sculpted heel to aid upper-fret access.
The Victory has the look and feel of a guitar whose design was signed off on a Friday afternoon. To hell with it. Here are some off-brand specs, such as the 24-fret ebony fingerboard, with a compound radius to boot. The fret-wire is not regulation Gibson gauge. As befitting the style of the guitar, the Victory has fatter jumbo frets.
It also has ‘80s Tribute pickups, a humbucker pairing designed around an Alnico V magnet, hotter at the bridge, more traditional at the neck, and you have a push-pull function for splitting the coils.
And given that we are effectively in competition with and chasing the Superstrat dollar, why not extend that scale to a Fender-ish 25.5”? Why not indeed (but then it’s not that unusual for a Gibson to have a 25.5” scale – see the SJ-200, Songwriter Recording Artist acoustic guitars, etc).
Other details include the Grover Mini Rotomatic tuners – note the acrylic dot inlays on the fingerboard, all aligned towards the bass side of the ‘board. It’s a quietly radical detail on a guitar that us unquietly radical.
The Victory Floyd Rose is available now, priced £2,399/$2,799, and that price includes a hard-shell guitar case.
For more details, head over to Gibson.
