We discuss the evolution of the new Polaris Custom with Cream T owner, Tim Lobley, and the seemingly perennial appeal for the hot-rod super-S
For a guitar design that evolved from the late 70s and was a very big part of the 80s, the super-S never really went away, although it does seem to be enjoying quite a revival with its typically HSS or HSH pickup configuration.
Alongside brands that have always made them, recent years saw guitarist Mark Lettieri create his HSS PRS Fiore –a classic super-S if ever we saw one –and we’ve seen Chapman’s ML1 Workshop Series Xand plenty of other makers, not least Patrick James Eggle with his 96, ploughing the genre. But as we’ve said in our review, Cream T’s guitars have been rather more innovative in their designs up to this point.
“I feel we have been about innovation a lot,” considers Tim, “but that’s not for everybody. Some people need amore standard guitar. As the owner of a guitar shop [Sound Affects], I’m aware it’s actually quite difficult for a lot of shops to access premium USA brands like Tom Anderson and Suhr. So, while the Polaris isn’t intended to be a copy of those, there is certainly a comparison [to be made] and I simply wanted to have a really, really good-quality guitar in that style that was accessible to more people and, moreover, was UK-made with quality components.”
Rather than just sketch out a quick super-S design and send it to Cream T’s manufacturing partner, the Polaris –named after the Northern Star –has had amore convoluted birth. “The full story is that the Polaris concept came to me via Mark Smith [a MI veteran who worked with Cream T on its recent rebranding for a short period of time]; he’d been working on it for a couple of years at that point,” Tim tells us. “He was very involved in the design of it. Simon McBride [Deep Purple guitarist] had a little bit of input in it, too, I understand and, obviously, Mark was the go-to man for Tom Anderson for many years through World Guitars. So he conceived the idea. Patrick James Eggle’s team did the CAD/ CNC work. I’ve spoken to Pat about this and while he didn’t do any of the design, his team was used to help turn Mark’s ideas into a technical drawing, as it were.
“From that, prototyping was done a couple of years ago through Wildwood Manufacturing in the USA who do woodworking for some quite major brands. The original idea was that it was going to be bought in like a partscaster and then finished and assembled in the UK. But I wanted it to be produced entirely in the UK, so we’ve turned that prototype into a guitar that is now completely UK-mad
