As a kid I was crazy for hot-rods and crazy for guitars. I subscribed to Hotrod Magazine and I attended all the cool, "wide world of wheels" type of car shows that would come to Kansas City. I dreamed of the day when I would tool around town in a 1940 Ford. Sometimes it had big fat tires, sometimes wide white walls. Of course it always had a flame-job. You gotta have that.

When I began to actually take guitar lessons my dreams of owning cool cars were swiftly replaced with dreams of owning cool guitars. Though I still love the cool cars, to this day I'm going to opt for the cool guitar every time.

For the better part of this decade I held a sweet gig at Gibson Custom Shop. Working in the Engineering department I had a wide range of duties. One was following special runs through production and this Hotrod Les Paul was one of those runs. I know these guitars intimately and I think they are marvelous machines! The run was to commemorate the 58th anniversary of Hotrod Magazine. Due to the success of the original plain-top run, a second run of Hotrods was commissioned; this time with figured maple tops.

In terms of raw materials and construction, these Hotrods are built the same as a figured top Gibson Historic Les Paul. They are long-tenon neck joint reissues with a custom flame-job top. The tops are beautifully figured maple and finished in a transparent cherry that is an absolute knock-out color. The flames are painted with an obscenely expensive iridescent paint ($1400 per quart!) that changes color and level of translucency depending on the angle of view.

In addition to the hot-rod flames, this Les Paul is decked out with a '58 engraved truss-rod cover and a brushed aluminum pickguard engraved with the unmistakable HOTROD logo. Under the hood, you'll find these Hotrods loaded with classic '57 humbuckers and the CTS pots and bumble-bee caps that you'll find in all the Historic Les Pauls.
The pickup covers were actually heated with a blow torch in the machine shop prior to being mounted on the pickups. This heat oxidation is to emulate the burn on a chrome plated tailpipe and man, it makes 'em look fast, too!

Hot-rods and rock&roll have always gone hand in hand. I recently showed one of these guitars to my friend, Amber. Amber is a certified rockabilly princess and one cool chick. She absolutely flipped out when she saw it. Before I knew what was happening she was back with her beau, long-time Rockabilly veteran Chad Hasty, to run the Hotrod through its paces.