The Flying V was Gibson’s reaction to the Fender Stratocaster, which was the first electric guitar to break away from the standard hour glass shaped body used for pretty much all string instruments until then. Gibson wanted in on this evolution and chose to go all in with the 3 futuristic shapes Flying V, Explorer and Moderna, while still maintaining the neck-through from the Les Paul and sharply angled headstock.
They did some improvements to the tuner locations on the headstock and made the upper frets accessible by the body shape instead of simply copying Fenders cut aways.
However, all 3 designs failed completely at the time, selling less than 100 pcs. They were too unconventional for the intended market of jazz and blues players, which already had a preference for other Gibson models like the ES series. It didn’t really offer anything that didn’t already exist.
Gibson learned the hard way that the spacey design was not the reason for Fenders success. It was all about the comfort. Gibson later made the SG to address this.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that heavy rock guitarists embraced the radical shapes, which was absolutely for looks.
Hendrix made a notable live appearances using the V prior to that, but it’s well known that he primarily recorded using a Stratocaster. I’d guess he used it live because of the humbuckers being better for that.
Explain the Flying V.
The Flying V was Gibson’s reaction to the Fender Stratocaster, which was the first electric guitar to break away from the standard hour glass shaped body used for pretty much all string instruments until then. Gibson wanted in on this evolution and chose to go all in with the 3 futuristic shapes Flying V, Explorer and Moderna, while still maintaining the neck-through from the Les Paul and sharply angled headstock.
They did some improvements to the tuner locations on the headstock and made the upper frets accessible by the body shape instead of simply copying Fenders cut aways.
However, all 3 designs failed completely at the time, selling less than 100 pcs. They were too unconventional for the intended market of jazz and blues players, which already had a preference for other Gibson models like the ES series. It didn’t really offer anything that didn’t already exist. Gibson learned the hard way that the spacey design was not the reason for Fenders success. It was all about the comfort. Gibson later made the SG to address this.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that heavy rock guitarists embraced the radical shapes, which was absolutely for looks. Hendrix made a notable live appearances using the V prior to that, but it’s well known that he primarily recorded using a Stratocaster. I’d guess he used it live because of the humbuckers being better for that.