Stacey David, host and producer of the popular SpeedTV show Gearz, has been tinkering with hot rods and pushing the limits of creativity ever since he got his hands on his sister’s 1963 Volkswagen Bug at the tender age of 12. His fascination with cars eventually got him into showbiz as the host of Spike TV’s long-running Trucks, which he parlayed into his current gig as host and producer of Gearz, which is now entering its third season on SpeedTV.
The whole time, David has kept a pretty good secret – that he’s just as fascinated with guitars as he is with cars. In fact, rumor has it that David on occasion actually played music professionally to raise money for his next automotive project.
Now, armed with two hit television shows under his belt and his fans clamoring for more, David visited Gibson Custom this week to pick his latest project – a totally slick-looking, hot rodded version of Gibson Custom’s iconic ES-335 guitar, complete with dual exhaust pipes, a custom green metallic paint job and a fully functional Bigsby tremolo system.
“I got with Gibson Custom a few years ago when we were doing an old GMC truck called Copperhead and an old Ford Bronco called Crazy Horse,” David said. “They built us a custom quilted snakeskin SG for the Copperhead and a custom Les Paul for the Crazy Horse, and then made a limited run of 25 guitars for each model and it was very successful.
“This idea was another one that I’d been kicking around for a while, and Gibson Custom finally gave me a scrap ES-335 and told me to cut away on it,” David said. “At first, I was a little worried about cutting it up. After all, the guitar is an icon! But once I started working on it, it all really started to come together very nicely. Gibson Custom ended up doing the woodworking part of it, and I did all of the metal work. I plugged it in today and it just sounds so awesome.”
In addition to the polished stainless steel dual exhaust pipes and custom paint job, David also plans on adding a few extra details to the “Hot Rod” ES-335 guitar, including a genuine Hurst shifter knob to the end of the Bigsby tremolo bar, and a set of custom-designed lug nuts for each volume and tone control.
“We wanted to get the effect that a hot rod car gets when it rolls into the burger joint and everybody turns around and says, ‘Hey that’s cool. That’s fast. All the girls want to ride in it, and all the boys want to own it,’” David said. “I think this one really stands out.”
Before this one-off creation heads for permanent placement in his personal collection of guitars, David is also planning a show around the building of the guitar. There’s also been some talk that this custom-built, hot rod “street” guitar might be offered in the form of a limited run by Gibson Custom – that is, if it doesn’t first disappear into a cloud of smoke like David’s old flat fender Willys Jeep does when he puts the pedal to the metal.
“Right now it’s a one-off guitar,” David said. “We are, however, doing a whole show around this guitar being created, from the first time I cut into it with a band saw to painting it and everything in between. We also might ask our audience if they like it, and if they’d like Gibson to make them a guitar like this. We’ll try to get people to tell us what they think about it and go from there.”
And if they like it? Rick Gembar, General Manager of Gibson Custom, said, “Then we’ll be keeping Stacey pretty busy.”
Stay tuned. David’s third season of Gearz begins in November, and you can catch past episodes of season two currently airing on SpeedTV. Click here for more details.