Announced much earlier in 2023, this new Surf liner Deluxe has been a long time coming. Worth the wait or has it gone off the boil? Let’s take a look…
Guild’s Surfliner popped onto our radar early in 2022, an original hardtail design for a brand that – up to that point –dealt in repros of its past glories. It was originally offered in HSS configuration, with Guild’s LB-1 minihumbucker at the bridge, while another HH variant was added later that year, this time using a pair of the standard humbucking-sized Guild HB-2s. With the same name as the train service that runs down the West Coast of California and with ‘surf ’ in its title, surely there should have been a vibrato, we argued? And instead of a conventional pickup selector switch, we were treated to small on/off switches on those first guitars, the sort of thing you’d find on a table lamp. However, back in April Guild took the wraps off this new Deluxe version, which is still HSS but replaces the original’s LB-1 with an HB-2, adds a traditional five-way lever pickup selector switch and adds an offset-style vibrato. Hurrah! Offered in three colours (and without a gigbag), the Deluxe comes in at £699, adding £300 to the original HSS and HH models, which currently list at £399.
That’s one pretty expensive vibrato, you might think. But, as its name suggests, this new model is more deluxe. For example, along with that vibrato we get modern-style rear-locking tuners. Then we get abound block-inlaid rosewood fingerboard on a two-piece roasted maple neck as opposed to the plain, untinted unroasted maple of those original models, which had adotinlaid maple fingerboard. The back-angled and pretty large headstock is now colourmatched to the body and features a slightly raised silver Guild logo.
The Guild team has taken the per fectly cr edible Surfliner design and kicked it up a notch or two in style, vibe and sound
The poplar body of the original is retained with light chamfering to the top’s trebleside waist and in the usual forearm contour position, wh
