electric · solidbody
Firebird
| Maker | Gibson |
|---|---|
| Origin | United States |
| Type | electric · solidbody |
| Introduced | 1963 |
| Price | USD 2499 (2026-09) |
| Maker founded | 1894 |
| Status | current |
The Firebird is Gibson's reverse-body electric, a distinctive design with mini-humbuckers for players who want something outside the Les Paul and SG families.
Watch
Story
Gibson's president Ted McCarty hired the car designer Ray Dietrich to design a shape that could answer Fender, and Dietrich took the Explorer and rounded its edges into the lines of a mid-1950s tailfin. The result reads backwards: the treble horn is longer than the bass one, which is why the originals are called reverse. It was the first Gibson solidbody built neck-through, the neck running the whole length of the instrument as five plies of mahogany with four narrow strips of walnut through it. The headstock was reversed to match, with banjo-style planetary-geared tuners down one side, and the pickups were smaller-footprint humbuckers carrying their own alnico bar magnet in each bobbin, with no screw poles at all. Four models went on sale in mid-1963. The shape did not sell, and Fender objected that the headstock mirrored the Stratocaster, so from 1965 Gibson answered with a conventional double-cutaway non-reverse body and a glued-in neck, then dropped that line as well. The reverse body returned in 1972, and again in 1976 for the Bicentennial, in black, vintage white, natural and sunburst with gold hardware.
Why it matters
Gibson's current production Firebird is the Platypus, which pays tribute to the transitional 1965 models by pairing the reverse body with a non-reverse headstock. That makes it a different guitar from the vintage originals that inspired it, and different again from the Custom Shop recreations of the early builds. It sits well above the entry electrics in Gibson's range and below the Custom Shop instruments.
Note
Reverse-body design by Ray Dietrich with mini-humbuckers and banjo-style tuners.
Specifications
- Scale length: 628.65 mm (24.75 in)
- Neck shape: SlimTaper
Before you buy
- The current model differs from vintage Firebirds in headstock and hardware, so check what a listing actually is
- The offset body needs a stand and a fitted case
- Confirm which pickups an example carries, as Firebird models have varied over the years
Other opinions
One video is one opinion. These are the other videos for this entry, most-viewed first. The order is the view count, not a ranking of ours.
Wildwood Guitars · 2017-02 · 191,206 views
“These men are guitar heroes to millions of people around the world, and they all have one thing in common: they fell in love with the power of the Firebird.”
Wildwood Guitars plays a USA Gibson Firebird through clean and dirty amps.
Tim Pierce Guitar · 2021-10 · 177,981 views
“Pulled This Guitar down from the wall at Norm's Rare Guitars, I was floored.”
Tim Pierce plays a Gibson Firebird and sets it against a Les Paul.