Back from the grave - Tacoma walks again! (Thanks George Gruhn)

Tannin · October 2023

George Gruhn, world authority on vintage guitars and owner of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville has (more-or-less) resurrected the fabled Tacoma guitar line.

BACKGROUND

For those with short memories, Tacoma was a Korean-owned American instrument manufacturer based in Tacoma, Washington, just up the road from Seattle where the Boeing jets are made. Founded in 1991, Tacoma made a range of remarkable, innovative guitars, baritone guitars, basses and tenor guitars which introduced a range of advanced features which have since become widely accepted.

Sadly, Fender bought them out in 2004. For the next four years, the Tacoma plant kept on producing those Tacoma guitars, before too long alongside Guild guitars - which Fender (at that time Guild's owner) had discovered it lacked the skills to manufacture at its Corona California electric guitar factory. Later again, Fender bought yet another acoustic guitar maker, Ovation, and shut down the Tacoma works claiming that it was going to restart production at the Ovation factory on the other side of the continent at New Hartford, Connecticut.

But they never did. They made Guilds at New Hartford for the next five years before selling the name and the IP to Cordoba (who still own Guild today) but for reasons never explained failed to restart Tacoma production.

Today, Tacoma guitars are highly sought after (some models more than others, of course). I was lucky enough to buy a 2005 spruce and maple Tacoma Thunderhawk baritone a few years ago for $2400 (£1,250). A few weeks later I was offered close to double that for it but had enough sense to decline.

^ Tacoma Thunderhawk baritone at left.

^ Thunderhawk second from right.

^ Second from right again.

THE NEWS

Gruhn Guitars have now opened a new factory near Nashville to make near-copies of the Tacoma models branded "Versitar".

George Gruhn claims to have been the original designer of the Tacoma models, and to have received royalties on that basis from Tacoma and then later from Fender. One or two known, respectable people dispute that claim and say it's complete nonsense. Who is right? I have no idea. Gruhn was a very good guitar designer - to this day I regret passing when offered a stunningly good 1980s Guild small jumbo designed by Gruhn. On the other hand, there were and are plenty of other smart people around.

Be that as it may, Gruhn is now making about 10 new quasi-Tacoma guitars a week, with plans to scale up. He has made several changes: various different tonewood choices, a different shaped soundhole (not nearly as nice as the original teardrop), different shaped headstock (not as nice), and a very boring plain rectangular bridge instead of the beautifully curved original. But they are likely to play as well or even better than the originals, and it's a fair bet they won't suffer from the notorious Tacoma orange peel finish.

So good luck to him! They will be beautiful instruments and not stupidly expensive - think around about the same price as a Martin D-18, perhaps a bit less.

Image: http://tannin.net.au/other/dpr/gruhn.jpg

^ A Gruhn Versitar. Note that this example is a standard-tuned guitar, equivalent to a Tacoma Roadking, not a baritone. Production of Gruhn baritones and other nice toys is scheduled to start soon.

Tannin · October 2023

ICBM · October 2023

Glad to see it’s the ones with the upper-bout soundhole they’ve gone for - those were always the best and most distinctive of the originals. I don’t know why they haven’t used the correct soundhole and bridge shapes though - the new ones are boring and ugly compared to the graceful ‘leaf’ originals.

I always liked the Papoose travel guitar, I regret not buying one at the time.

Tannin · October 2023

I agree re the aesthetics. My guess is that it is to avoid being sued by Fender.

Gruhn claims to have designed the originals, and to have been paid a royalty, but other respectable people with some inside knowledge deny this. Where is the truth? Somewhere in the middle, perhaps.

My guess is that the original designs were worked over several times (this is after all perfectly normal as a company develops a product, fine-tunes, tweaks this thing for sound quality, changes that thing for ease of production, modifies another thing because the sales guys say it would sell better) and that Gruhn was one of the various people who played a part in that process but not the only one. If this is the case, some of the original IP belongs to Tacoma's legal heir, Fender. Gruhn has explained the differences at some length: this may be partly motivated by a desire to keep the lawyers happy. (Or may not.)

KKJale · October 2023

Thanks for the info. A very very interesting comeback. I agree on the original soundhole and bridge designs - the old ones were nicer by far.

I've had a Papoose since 1996 and deffo regret not grabbing a few other models along the way (especially a baritone, an exotic Papoose and an acoustic bass). Still I did nab that one and it's been mega useful down the years, especially for tracking parts, adding pseudo-12 string, high voiced leads, background rhythm doubling... there seems to be a hole in the spectrum that it just pops into beautifully every time.

My impression was that Gruhn was very much there at the "drawn on a napkin" concept stage for Tacoma's launch model the Papoose (including the idea for the scale length, the offset soundhole and the asymmetric bracing) and hence, by extension, you might argue and he probably does, for the Wing series as a whole... but that others did the heavy lifting on the Papoose design and all the others that followed. I very easily could be wrong, it's only what I've inferred by reading old threads going back 20 years or more and watching some obscureish Gruhn interviews on YouTube. I met GG but never asked him. Probably wouldn't have learned much anyway, he tends to be very careful and on-message. Interesting that it's a matter of controversy and I suppose that with IP matters and royalties that's no surprise.

One thing I've never got to the bottom of about the Tacoma company (who as we all know moved into the pacific north-west in the first place in search of piano soundboards) is what happened between 1991 (when the factory was founded) and 1996 (when the Wing series was launched), because apparently they acted as an OEM guitar manufacturer for somebody else. But nobody seems to know who...

Littlejonny · October 2023

They sound awful in the video

Tannin · October 2023

^ They did! You'd think they could have used a proper microphone. Of the several famous players, only Tommy sounded decent.

Kittyfrisk · October 2023

Tannin said:

^ They did! You'd think they could have used a proper microphone. Of the several famous players, only Tommy sounded decent.

True, but his trendy shredded trousers totally ruined any possible redemptive effect for me

Image: /plugins/EmojiExtender/emoji/fb/3.gif

guitarjack66 · October 2023

Kittyfrisk said:

Tannin said:

^ They did! You'd think they could have used a proper microphone. Of the several famous players, only Tommy sounded decent.

True, but his trendy shredded trousers totally ruined any possible redemptive effect for me

It seems the ultimate symbol of success. 'I have so much money that I can cut up my jeans on a whim as I can easily buy another pair! And then do it again!'

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Back from the grave - Tacoma walks again! (Thanks George Gruhn)

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