Electric guitars exploded into the public consciousness between the 1940s and 1960s, and so it makes sense that many of the people designing instruments at that time were heavily inspired by the design of automobiles from that period.
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After all, there’s plenty of parallels and crossover between the attitude and style of rock ‘n’ roll and the brash rebelliousness of hot-rod car culture in this time. And it surely didn’t hurt that automotive design, particularly in the USA, was enjoying perhaps its most bold, varied and timeless era – giving the guitar designers the and now plenty to work with.
The evolution
While the focus of this article will be primarily on modern design, from after the birth of the solidbody electric guitar, it would be remiss to not mention that automobile design has been influencing instrument design dating back to the 1700s, as even some features of Stradivarius instruments are said to have been possibly influenced by carriages of the time.
But the post-WWII 1950s signaled a boom of innovative automotive engineering, especially in the US, while hot on the heels, companies likeFender和吉布森在固体电动吉他的新发现市场中闪耀着一条道路。许多很棒的歌曲都是关于Rocket 88和Hot Rod Lincolns和Deuce Coups的歌曲。但是，热棒文化也启发了摇滚乐，也更深层的水平。
热棒：功能超过时尚
The idea of “function over fashion” governed the hot-rod industry ever since people discovered that going fast is fun. People didn’t take the fenders off their vehicles because it looked cool, they did it to reduce weight and aid in cooling the ever-modified engines, used for racing. Various modifications were done to increase performance, but later took on a life of their own and began to be a modification people would do because culture had decided that this做过look cool actually, and gave the vehicle a hot-rodded, racing attitude.
An easy comparison in the guitar world would be埃迪·范·海伦（Eddie Van Halen）弗兰克斯标准 - 一种高度修改的吉他，体现了“时尚的功能”心态。它同时粗糙，丑陋和凉爽。随之而来的是一波模仿油漆工作的人，以及我们在吉他上看到的各种修改。这样，“功能超越时尚”启发了一系列带有野生油漆的时尚超级束缚。
态度
Any artist who embodies the rock and roll spirit all owe some of their style to the world of classic cars, whether it be the look, the attitude, the sound, or the soul. Artists like詹姆斯·海特菲尔德,Brian Setzer，社会扭曲，ZZ顶部, and the entire genre of rockabilly are great examples of this.
汽车一直是自由漫游和探索全世界所提供的长期图标。对我们许多人来说，像吉他一样的音乐乐器代表了漫游我们创造力最深刻的工具。这两个对象都通过其最基本的功能不可分割地链接。
颜色和曲线
The Fender Jazzmaster came out in 1958 and featured curves and horns that were evocative of the lines on the Buicks and Cadillacs of the preceding years. In 1952, solid body guitars could be defined by the bulbous designs of theTelecaster和Les Paul设计。这些开始在1954年开始让位于更清晰，更光滑的Stratocaster形状，在1953年全新的汽车设计的尾巴上，其中包括雪佛兰Corvette，Cadillac Eldorado和Buick Skylark，以及Buick Skylark，所有这些都带有更夏普的设计线。1958年，吉布森（Gibson）发行了探险家和飞行V车型，该模型还以特色，让人联想到汽车行业中不断增长的挡泥板鳍，尤其是克莱斯勒和凯迪拉克的翅膀。
50年代末，挡泥板吉他上的颜色直接从50年代末汽车制造商的颜色目录中取出。例如，嘉年华红也被称为杜邦代码2219-H，该代码与福特1956年的Thunderbird和Fairlane型号上使用的颜色代码相同。雪佛兰（Chevy）在1957年使用“冲浪绿色”（Surf Green）和“泡沫绿色”（Foam Green），是1956年使用的颜色别克。诸如Placid Blue（金属），达芙妮（Metallic），达芙妮（Metallic），达芙妮（Daphne Blue），Sonic Blue，Sonic Blue，Olympic White，Olympic White，Dakota Red和Metallic Firemist Gold and of银都是凯迪拉克的颜色。
Interestingly enough, we still don’t know which color code Fender used for their black guitars back in those days. Most people believe it closely matches the Black Corvettes used in ’54 and ’58 or Cadillac in ’58. One of Fender’s most prized custom colors was Candy Apple Red, which was not a production color for any auto manufacturers, but rather the brainchild of a hot-rodder and car customizer named Joe Bailon.
T鸟和火鸟
吉布森（Gibson）也对从汽车行业借用颜色和曲线并不陌生。他们的金色薄雾颜色是'59 Oldsmobile颜色。金顶使用了硝基透明涂层，并混合了新月的青铜粉（颜色ID＃256，以防您想知道……）。当吉布森（Gibson）设计火鸟时，他们引入了一位名叫Ray Dietrich的顾问，他是由一名为Packard和Lincoln等设计汽车设计师的汽车设计师。
The continuous flowing lines of the neck thru guitar are reminiscent on the running boards that flow up into front fenders on his old designs. He also later co-founded LeBaron Inc. which would fit a custom body on a running chassis – some of the finest pre-WWII custom cars came from LeBaron. The Custom Firebirds between 1963-1969 took their colors directly from the catalogues of Oldsmobile and Cadillac [there was also Kerry Green, which was from the Buick catalogue and Ember Red, which was from Edsel].
70年的灵感
The curves found on guitar designs, particularly Fender models like theStratocasterJazzmaster不仅引起了主流汽车设计师的影响，而且还受到了Virgil Exner的“前锋外观”等设计师的未来派鳍的影响，使汽车看起来更加光滑，更平滑，更具侵略性。他设计的很大一部分是Fender Fins，这可能是对Fender设计的最明显贡献。这些曲线和特征仍然是建筑商的灵感。
最近的一个例子是加布里埃尔·柯里（Gabriel Currie）Echopark吉他，最近创建了一个名为Exner系列的吉他阵容 - 得知这些乐器的灵感来自Exner带给汽车设计世界的创新功能，这并不感到惊讶。这些吉他目前正在Troy Van Leeuwen和乔·佩里，证明过去的汽车设计仍在影响当今乐器的设计。
To all the great automotive designers out there, the guitar industry owes a debt of homage and gratitude, for the inspiration, the color and curves, the attitude, the function & fashion that define our industry.