Coolest Guitars You Have Ever Seen
We’ve all seen custom guitars, but we usually think of a custom guitar as having custom pickups or something similar. Guitarists often commission unique guitars to add to their stage presence, or just wow the crowd.
Technology, specifically 3D printing, opened doors to a wide range of customizations for guitars, and some of the coolest guitars ever built.
This list ranks among the toughest list we’ve put together. There are far more cool guitars than we have room to list.
So, we had to choose a balanced mix of cool guitars ranging from the classics to more outrageous models. We think you’ll enjoy the list. Maybe it will inspire you to create your own custom guitar design.
We scoured the internet and decades worth of custom guitar images to find the coolest guitars for you.
We focused on genuinely unique guitars or guitars that made an impact on the music scene. To make our list, a guitar must be playable.
If it’s not playable, then it’s just art and not really a guitar. All the guitars on this list began as a custom guitar, but some are being mass produced today. If you appreciate guitar music, guitars, and art, you’re going to enjoy this list.
Millennium Falcon Guitar
We think Han Solo would be proud of this guitar. It fits the bill as one of the coolest guitars we’ve seen.
Initially, this guitar featured vintage Star Wars toys as the main body. Several Star Wars themed custom guitars exist, but this one is one of the few that sounds good. If nothing else, you will stand out on stage playing one of these guitars.
It comes in a bass guitar version as well, and you can order a case for it that’s custom built for the guitar.
The guitars initially sold for $600 to $800 on Etsy, but you can find one on eBay for around $100 now.
They come complete with everything you expect a guitar to have, plus some cool LEDs that run off a battery pack. This guitar is a must have if you love guitars and Star Wars.
Ibanez Iceman
Until he started endorsing his guitar design, Paul Stanley of KISS used the Iceman often on stage. Its shape caught the eye of Paul Gilbert who flipped the Iceman’s design upside down to create his Ibanez Fireman. Both designs hold your eye when you first see them, but the original Iceman is both elegant and unique.
Several versions of the original design made their way to the stage in the hands of quite a few guitar players. Daron Malakian, Jay Yuenger, Sam Totman, and Fredrik Thorndendal all used some version of the original Iceman design on stage during their careers. The guitar made appearances on dozens of albums and in hundreds of songs. So, not only is it cool looking, but it sounds pretty good too.
Bill Bailey’s Six Neck Guitar
Bailey is an English comedian and musician. His six-neck guitar is by far one of the coolest guitars ever created. At first glance, the guitar looks like a gimmick or at best a severe case of someone just trying to prove they could build it. To make our list of coolest guitars, a guitar must be playable, and Bailey plays this guitar from the top neck to the bottom one.
The guitar looks unwieldy and cumbersome, so Bailey uses a stool during his act to support the heavy six-neck guitar. In the video clips we found of his act, Bailey only uses the top three necks of the guitar, but in interviews with various news sources and magazines he claims he uses all six of them. The bottom two require some skills we have a hard time picturing, but we believe it’s possible to use them.
Gibson Custom Jimi Hendrix Flying V
Hendrix’s Flying V is one of the most iconic guitars in music history. The Flying V is not rare or unique onits own, but in the hands of a master like Hendrix, it turned into something more than a guitar. Hendrix owned and used several Gibson Flying Vs during his career, but his 1967 Flying V is often considered his favorite, even though he gave it away eventually.
Hendrix played the guitar left-handed, but his 1967 Flying V was a right-handed model. He did most of the customizations himself including the final paint job. He gave away his 1967 Flying V and started using a custom left handed Flying V sometime in 1969 or 1970.
Reports on the exact dates are conflicting depending on which version of music history you read.
Whichever version of history you subscribe to, we can all agree Hendrix’s original Flying V and the changes he inspired Gibson to make in subsequent models make the Flying V one of the coolest guitar models.
Gibson Custom Don Felder & Hotel California & EDS-1275
The song, Hotel California, by the Eagles, still holds a position on Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 greatest songs of all time. Some of the song’s success is directly related to the concert performances of the song and the haunting solos Don Felder performed on his Gibson EDS-1275 coupled with Joe Walsh’s contribution which amounted to a dual solo.
Gibson produced a limited number of custom EDS-1275s as a response to the success and power of their product in the hands on a guitar legend like Felder. Felder heavily customized his original EDS-1275, and Gibson added his customizations to the limited-edition series they produced in the late 1960s.
About 110 EDS-1275 guitars were made initially, but more were manufactured to meet market demand. Felder signed fifty of the custom models that adopted his customizations.
Gene Simmons’ Axe Bass Guitar
When you consider the armor, costumes, and makeup employed by KISS in concert, it’s not much of a reach to imagine Simmons commissioning a custom bass guitar that looks like an actual battle ax.
Simmons used this design on stage and later adopted the bass guitar’s design as part of his personal line of guitars.
You can own one of Simmons custom bass guitars, but you’ll pay between six and nine thousand dollars for it. You can take it to another level and let Simmons play your new guitar on stage for an additional fee, and he’ll bring it to you backstage after the show and sign it. A guitar that looks like a battle ax was played on stage by Gene Simmons and is autographed by the artist qualifies as an epically cool guitar.
Draco the Dragon Guitar
Initially, this guitar was just a concept and was not playable. Luckily, because our list requires the guitar to be playable, the original 3D printed fake guitar got a makeover and moved into the ranks of an actual musical instrument. It’s hard to say how many of these exist today, but we know the original and a handful of copies made their way to collectors since the origin of the guitar in 2008.
Carp ‘n Cod
The coolness of this particular guitar is directly based on your idea of cool. It’s handmade, but playable and sounds pretty good in spite of its odd design. The designer and builder of this fish guitar has been building guitars for over two decades and produced quite a few unique guitar designs. Whether you appreciate the hand carved look or not, this guitar deserves its spot on our list of cool guitars.
Rusty Cooley 7 String Wraith
Several things make this guitar cool starting with its name, Wraith. It looks pretty cool too and has a seventh string. Everything about this guitar is bigger from its long scale to its pickups. Playing a seven- string guitar is not a cool experience until you get some experience under your belt, so keep that in mind if you’re thinking about buying one of these.
B.C. Rich Warlock
B.C. Rich owes some of its popularity among heavy metal guitar players to the Warlock guitar model.
They produce some very cool guitars with great sound, but the Warlock is one of their best and coolest products. B.C. Rich guitars found their way into the collections of several famous rockers like Craig Goldy, Chuck Shuldiner, and Blackie Lawless to name a few.
Ogre Guitars Transwing Flying X
Everything Ogre makes is cool, but their Transwing Flying X is our favorite. It looks like something out of a futuristic movie involving cyborgs or homicidal robots. Despite its design, it produced great sound and made its way to the stage on a few occasions. It’s a little heavy for a guitar which probably keeps it off the stage and grounded to the studio.
We’ve covered the guitars we think are pretty cool. Thanks to the creativeness of musicians, guitar builders, and curious artists, the last few decades produced some great sounding and incredible looking guitars. Whether you’re a guitar player, a fan, or just appreciate exciting art, these guitars rank among the coolest guitars ever manufactured.
