The ZZ Top icon's unique new six-string sports the brand's marvelously ingenious Gyrock system, which features a rotating pickup loading bay for seamless sonic swaps
(Image credit: Wild Custom Guitars)
Everybody, hold your horses. Wild Custom Guitars, in collaboration with ZZ Top icon Billy Gibbons, may have just released the wildest signature guitar of the year so far – The Billy F. Gibbons Special, which features a unique rotating pickup system.
Aside from the gloriously hot-rodded aesthetic design, modeled after a 1934 Ford Coupe dubbed the 'Whiskey Runner,' the eye-catching electric guitar comes equipped with the boutique brand’s newly designed Gyrock system.
Promising instant and seamless pickup changes thanks to a marvelously ingenious barrel-shaped pickup loading bay, the guitar allows users to effortlessly rotate the pin, granting immediate access to a number of different pickups.
Better yet, the design lets those lucky enough to wield the crazy six-string swap out the pickup barrel for any number of versatile options. An array of expansion packs are available, including a Wild Custom P-90, as well as Seymour Duncan's Lipstick Tube and Antiquity Strat Texas Hot pickups.
(Image credit: Wild Custom Guitars)
The Gyrock system sports two signature BFG pickups – the Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates and Seymour Duncan Red Devil – as well as an all-new custom-wound humbucker ominously dubbed The Grizzly.
No matter the pickup configuration, the control layout remains the same, meaning a solitary tone control lines up alongside a master volume knob.
Think the spec sheet has peaked already? Oh contraire, dear reader, for this plucky model is just getting started.
Get The Pick Newsletter
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!
Build-wise, the guitar boasts an Eastern European alder body, which has been treated to a honeycomb chambered structure used for its resonant and sustaining sonic character.
This is paired with a three-ply Canadian maple neck – joined to the body via threaded bushings and mechanical bolts – as well as a Brazliain pau ferro fretboard, which features a 10”-16” compound radius and 22 Medium Jumbo frets.
Other more tame appointments include Mother of Pearl inlays, Schertler open-gear tuners and a bone nut.
What did the man himself have to say about his wild new signature? Well, quite simply: “WoooooooWeeeeee…!”
Couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
The Wild Custom Billy Gibbons signature guitar is available now for $9,999.
Matt is a Senior Staff Writer, writing for Guitar World, Guitarist and Total Guitar. He has a Masters in the guitar, a degree in history, and has spent the last 16 years playing everything from blues and jazz to indie and pop. When he’s not combining his passion for writing and music during his day job, Matt records for a number of UK-based bands and songwriters as a session musician.
