Cars and Guitars

Hot Rods and Guitars have always been a winning combination for cool.  The style of a car and the guitar are very close in the vision of lines and color.  When I’ve walked a Car show, I always walked out with tons of motivation and I never knew why.  I figured out as time went along, it was about lines, color, functionality and a never ending blend of unexpected.  The similarity of what I like about a car is in most cases what I would like to see in a guitar.  Chrome, color and black always work well.

It is a blast to walk up to a car owner and talk about his ride.  They always know the color codes and the history of the color, not just as it relates to their car.  My thoughts are, “if it looks good on a car, it will look great on a guitar.”  I always took my son to the shows and ask for his opinion, who I know would give me an honest opinion.

There have been many times I see chrome, color and black and immediately have a desire to see a NEWMAN in that color.  This first case was seeing a 1957 2 tone Thunderbird painted Coral Sand and Grey metallic.  After about a year of kicking the color around, we made the guitar which was actually a 3 tone as it had a silver painted stripe to separate the Coral Sand from the Gray.  We ended up taking this guitar to a ZZ Top Show and met with Billy Gibbons who loved it so I knew we had a good combination of car and guitar.

Fast forward to August 2020.  The other color I have kicked around for about a year now is Iris Mist Metallic.  This is a Pontiac color from the mid 60’s.  I had seen a couple Hot Rods and a GTO with this color and liked the balance of the chrome, color and black from the tires.  We have topped off the guitar with total outline binding around the top of the body, around the neck and headstock.  We finished with a chrome logo which really gave the guitar a hot rod appeal to me.  The black comes in with the Sentell Blade pickups which are also a hot rod feature custom fresh from California.

What makes a subject pleasing to the eye is something undefined.  Pleasing to the eye is also the key to the heart.  Of all the elements of work at NEWMAN Guitars, it is having a vision and enough talented people around to make your vision into reality.  Design is a risk but there is a common thread to many cars and guitars.  The day of discovery for the vision is the last day on the shop bench.

Jeff Smith