S300 Reissue

adorshki

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The Pacers (to bring things back around) were not boring looking. Maybe a little clownish, but not boring and not ugly either IMHO.

Yes.
And design credit goes to Dick Teague who was also responsible for the beautiful AMX and Javelin and the AMX GT concept shown above.
"Back in the day" the best of Detroit's designers got recognition they deserved and their unigue personal styling cues were as recognizable as a famous artist like Picasso or Dali or a musician like Hendrix or Montgomery.
(I'm going somewhere with this)
Harley Earl gave us GM's game changing '51 Buick LeSabre concept car.
He also started the tailfins wars when he authorized the '48 Cadillac design of which in my personal opinion the '49 was the peak:
1547791556294

That was the car in which Jack Kerouac embarked upon the cross-country trek that yielded "On The Road"
Earl also gave us the original '53 Corvette, but was forced into mandatory retirement in '58.
His successor Bill Mitchell had "sleeker" design sensibilties and mentored a young gun by the name of Larry Shinoda who evolved the '58 Corvette SS into the '63 Stingray:
MitchellwStingRay.jpg

Mitchell actually drove that around on the streets, BTW.
Talk about free advertising with teasers.
Shinoda eventually went to Ford and gave them the Boss Mustang:
170816851.jpg

Meanwhile over at AMC the afore-mentioned Dick Teague was developing the AMX:
1566743350.jpg

And Chrysler's golden boy was Virgil Exner, who ushered in a headlight/grill look whose cues were still valid 50 years later on the "retro re-issue" Chrysler 300's:
08975c562daa78cd9d19f4d40f65e0cd.jpg

Exner also gave us the notorious "bullet-nosed" Studebakers:
220px-1951_Studebaker_Champion_Starlight_coupe_%2812404302195%29.jpg

OK, like most artists and musicians, they ain't all home runs, either.
'55 Biscayne Concept, Harley Earl approved:
05.jpg

(I actually dig it, though)
Exner also gave us the Valiant which definitely worked better as a coupe, but was still a little too outre for the times:
1093d260f35b68e64c761a7f10276f62.jpg

And Teague was also responsible for the mid '70's AMC Matador, memorable for its appearance in a Bond flick and for which, since I've hit my image limit in a post, will have to link:
https://cdn.hswstatic.com/gif/1974-1978-amc-matador-5.jpg
The Matador was obviously what the Pacer wanted to be when it grew up.
And the Pacer by the way was one of the first cars ever to be designed from the ground up according to the "Form Should Follow Function" philosophy.

OK, so, I said I was going somewhere with this.
Some of the most memorable car designs were love 'em or hate 'm according to personal taste but they were definitely "once seen never forgotten".
There's similar precedent in the guitar world:
Lloyd Loar's Gibsons
Leo Fender's Broadcaster/Telecaster/Stratocaster designs
Les Paul.
Paul Bigsby.
Nat Daniel (Danelectro)
Semie Mosely (Mosrite)
Who were the unsung heroes at Guild who had the guts to design the '80's revamped "S" and "X" series?
And I think the management deserves equal kudos for having the guts to make 'em, ship 'em and let the chips fall where they may (so to speak)
.


Maybe Hans'll tell us in volume 2 of the Guild Guitar Book?
Or have I seen it and just forgotten over the years?

All the comments about the playability of these guitars only increases my appreciation for their different drummer designs.
Whatever they are they ain't boring and forgettable and cleaving to the traditional 2-circles-and-a-neck design whose ongoing popularity maybe confirms just how conservative guitar players actually are as a group.
Harley Earl said it well:
"The most gracefully styled automobile in the world would not sell well year after year if it were not soundly engineered.
On the other hand a well-engineered automobile would have trouble on the competive market if it were distastefully designed"
 
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DThomasC

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OK, like most artists and musicians, they ain't all home runs, either.
'55 Biscayne Concept, Harley Earl approved:
05.jpg

(I actually dig it, though)

I like it too.
I might be alone in my interpretation, but from the windshield back it reminds me of an early Corvair while from the windshield forward it looks a little like an early Thunderbird, perhaps modified for Mad Max movie.

1962%2BCorvair%2BMonza.jpg

1955-ford-thunderbird.jpg
 

walrus

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Who were the unsung heroes at Guild who had the guts to design the '80's revamped "S" and "X" series?
And I think the management deserves equal kudos for having the guts to make 'em, ship 'em and let the chips fall where they may (so to speak)
.

This is an excellent question!

walrus
 

adorshki

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I like it too.
I might be alone in my interpretation, but from the windshield back it reminds me of an early Corvair
Oh yeah, quite common for some element of a concept to be incorporated into a regular production model. I have no doubt that was the source of the production Corvair's lines.
Think the T-bird similarity's stretching it, though.
What's so different about the Biscayne is the thick vertical bar grill theme and the headlights being on the hood as opposed to on the fenders like everything else at the time (With the exception of Bug-eye Sprites and a couple of more obscure European models)
Here's a Harley Earl clay from around the same period showing the earliest iteration of the "split window" boattail and the little B-pillar vents detail that went onto the '58 BelAir (and the '63 'Vette and which I love to death)
2b851c7775935cbbfb8dd4e52db4c37d.jpg

And the fins presaged the post-'60 Cadillac fins:
ebay147707438027098.jpg

The Corvair name first appeared BTW on a '54 Corvette coupe concept car:
54art.jpg

54Corvair760.jpg

'58 XP-700 clearly shows where the '61-'62 Corvette rear end styling came from:
58chevrolet_corvette_xp-700_05.jpg

The records are rife with examples.
:smile:

Thunderbird prototype actually started off bearing all the mid-'50s Ford corporate styling cues:
durham-classics-1954-ford-thunderbird_1_839113ba0edb285b68351edea11edf43.jpg

Somebody (Henry Ford II?) had the good sense to clean up the lines like the european designers of the day, and I actually suspect there was a Ferrari influence at work:
image

Even though I owned a '91 Thunderbird Supercoupe I loved to death, I actually never dug deeply into the model's styling DNA.
Part of the issue is that Ford never really had a "Motorama" like GM and its designers didn't get the same public recognition of corporate respect as GM's.
 

DrumBob

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But he talks from his personal experience marketing/selling them for Guild back in the day, so from his point of view the model was a failure. Can't blame him for his thoughts.
Ralf

Danke, Ralf. Sie sind richtig.

That body shape was a complete failure and a bi*** to sell back then. Nobody wanted them, and even our salespeople were begging us to come up with a more conventional-looking solidbody. That's the time they redesigned and released the new M-80.

Some people here have no idea what it was like dealing with those guitars from my standpoint as a Guild employee. We had them piling up in the warehouse unsold, salesman moaning and groaning about the design and pressure was put on all of us to blow them out at 50%+15. Even then, dealers said no. Those guitars were just another one of Neil Lilien's bad decisions.
 
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DrumBob

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My thought exactly. "Look at this butt ugly guitar. Do you want to buy some? I wouldn't, but if you want to that would be cool. No judgement."

FYI, that was not how I approached sales calls at all when trying to sell the S series guitars. Even then, I had a good phone sales approach.
 

DrumBob

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This is an excellent question!

walrus

Easy answer: Mark Dronge. He was always aware of the rock market, going back to the early '60's. It was Mark who convinced his father to design and release a solidboy guitar in the first place. Al hated rock 'n roll and thought solidbody guitars were a flash in the pan. He was a jazz player and fan. That's why Guild made archtops in the beginning exclusively.

After Leon Tell and Neil Lilien were fired for running Guild into the ground and bankrupting the company, Avnet brought in Mark and he immediately sensed that Guild needed newly-designed solidbody guitars. He saw what was going on with big hair bands and met the guys from Twisted Sister at NAMM, right after they'd been blown off by Gibson. Mark saw an opportunity and jumped on it. The X series guitars were a result.
 

GGJaguar

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Nobody wanted them, and even our salespeople were begging us to come up with a more conventional-looking solidbody. That's the time they redesigned and released the new M-80.

This reminds me of what happened at G&L in the 1980s. The early and mid-1980s Skyhawk and S-500 models weren't quite conventional-looking enough and didn't sell well. The dealers loved the way they sounded and begged G&L to put them into a more "normal" looking format. That's when Dale Hyatt stepped in and had them re-designed. They sold much better and the S-500 has remained in the G&L catalog ever since. An interesting note - G&L reissued the original style Skyhawk last year, though I don't think they sell many of them (but then, G&L doesn't sell a lot of guitars anyway). Like the Guild S-300, the early style Skyhawk and S-500 has some devoted followers. Below is a 1982 S-500 (left) with its big headstock and metal control plate, and on the right, the S-500 that was re-designed in 1988.

s-500a.jpg
91shsigf.jpg
 
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adorshki

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FYI, that was not how I approached sales calls at all when trying to sell the S series guitars. Even then, I had a good phone sales approach.
From one sales rep to another, "I believe you".

Easy answer: Mark Dronge. He was always aware of the rock market, going back to the early '60's. It was Mark who convinced his father to design and release a solidboy guitar in the first place. Al hated rock 'n roll and thought solidbody guitars were a flash in the pan. He was a jazz player and fan. That's why Guild made archtops in the beginning exclusively.

After Leon Tell and Neil Lilien were fired for running Guild into the ground and bankrupting the company, Avnet brought in Mark and he immediately sensed that Guild needed newly-designed solidbody guitars. He saw what was going on with big hair bands and met the guys from Twisted Sister at NAMM, right after they'd been blown off by Gibson. Mark saw an opportunity and jumped on it. The X series guitars were a result.

THANKS!!
 

DrumBob

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From one sales rep to another, "I believe you".



THANKS!!

I will admit that I had some success occasionally selling guitars over the phone to Guild dealers, but they were usually acoustics, as you might expect. Lilien refused to give me sales commissions, and that did not go over well with me after a while.
 

adorshki

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I will admit that I had some success occasionally selling guitars over the phone to Guild dealers, but they were usually acoustics, as you might expect.
I get that, and yes it's a world of difference pitching something "consumable" over the phone to a "prospect" who's never heard of you or your product as opposed to pitching a known wholesale product to someone who's in the business of re-selling it themselves.
I do stand by my statement that I didn't sell many cars I didn't believe in to somebody who didn't already believe in it themselves but it's still a different kind of sale and doesn't mean you had the same issue yourself.
Just recognizing how one's own attitudes could color one's "pitch" is the mark of somebody professional enough to know how to adjust for it.
Personally I just never saw a reason to cross the ethical line by saying things about a product I didn't believe.
I suspect you didn't either.
But yeah if the dealers themselves don't believe in the instruments then you're simply trying to appeal to the greed instinct with a cut-rate price as you described, and that rarely works out happily for either party.
As you also described.
:smile:
Lilien refused to give me sales commissions, and that did not go over well with me after a while.
Did you not also mention once they started dumping stuff outside your job description on you as well?
 
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DrumBob

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I get that, and yes it's a world of difference pitching something "consumable" over the phone to a "prospect" who's never heard of you or your product as opposed to pitching a known wholesale product to someone who's in the business of re-selling it themselves.
I do stand by my statement that I didn't sell many cars I didn't believe in to somebody who didn't already believe in it themselves but it's still a different kind of sale and doesn't mean you had the same issue yourself.
Just recognizing how one's own attitudes could color one's "pitch" is the mark of somebody professional enough to know how to adjust for it.
Personally I just never saw a reason to cross the ethical line by saying things about a product I didn't believe.
I suspect you didn't either.
But yeah if the dealers themselves don't believe in the instruments then you're simply trying to appeal to the greed instinct with a cut-rate price as you described, and that rarely works out happily for either party.
As you also described.
:smile:

Did you not also mention once they started dumping stuff outside your job description on you as well?

Yes, they did. When I started, Leon Tell told me that my main function was to get endorsers, and that was something I excelled in doing. I had to put out dealer fires now and then, after the sales manager, Ray Portal effed up orders, and that was dumped on me, because he didn't want to get on the phone. I didn't appreciate that at all. I have a great story I could tell at a later date.

With the S series guitars, we had dealers complaining that we didn't have a solidbody electric they could sell, because people passed up those guitars due to the outlandish looks. Again, one of Lilien's mistakes, copying a German Hoyer guitar. We'd have dealers who'd buy three or four S series guitars, and then they'd sit, collecting dust.
 
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adorshki

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So, is this reissue going to happen?
Going by post #1 about 4 months ago I'd say it was simply a potential market inquiry from Guild, definitely not a "sure thing" at the time.
Guild asked on Facebook today if anyone would be interested in an S300 or B301 reissue.

Not sure how far ahead of time they'd announce a new model but normally it's a couple of months before a NAMM show, to raise maximum awareness.
Kinda suspect from the mixed response here that it won't happen, seems like a higher negative than positive reaction to the styling.
But this place is definitely older and more conservative in a lot of ways than the Facebook demographic which they actually want to gauge.
It's where the real new buyers are going to come from.
But bumping the thread might generate some more current inside knowledge.
 

fronobulax

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There seems to be 9-12 months between CMG asking a question and product hitting the market. If i really wanted a good number I'd ask Grot how long elapsed from the time CMG contacted him about borrowing certain rare instruments and the time the Newark Street versions appeared?

Facebook has billions of users so even if the demographics were similar I'd base my marketing on that larger sample any day.
 
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