OK, it's the 11th November 2011, that is 11/11/11, and as such today has been designated Nigel Tufnel Day. To celebrate this day of Maximum Elevenness, we here at Guitarz - for this day only - will be posting an unprecedented ELEVEN blog posts! So, keep tuned throughout the day for eleven weird and wonderful guitars!
Here's a 1980s Hair Metal-style ultra-pointy Explorer-derived guitar design in the shape of this
Mako Exotec XP-4. This is a guitar about which there is very little information out there, and what there is can be contradictory. It looks to be Japanese and indeed some have speculated that this is a Matsumoku product, although others have reported that some examples were Korean-made. There are also references to these having been distributed by Kaman (the company behind Ovation guitars) which seems a little at odds with the supposed Matsumoku connection, although not impossible.
It certainly looks to be a guitar that was jumping on the Hair Metal bandwaggon. Despite the ultra-pointy body shape, the headstock design is quite conservative, the pickups are a pair of Strat-like singlecoils rather than the humbuckers you might expect on such a guitar, and the trem is also a vintage Strat-like affair rather than some fancy Floyd Rose or Kahler-esque locking jobby.
The guitar is currently located in Los Angeles and is listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $685.
G L Wilson
© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!
These were made by Samick in Korea. The Truss rod cover and switch give it away. Matsumoku didn't use a hex nut on the switch and that's Samick/Hondo's TRC style. That and you can occasionally find ones that still have the MIK sticker and Samick QC sticker.
ReplyDelete