TYPE
Electric Solid Body Angular guitar
FEATURES
Limba body, glued limba neck
Rosewood fretboard
Two PAF humbuckers
INFORMATION
Unlike all previous guitars, the Futura had a spectacular angular body shape. The head design was also unusual: it was V-shaped and each leg accommodated three tuners. The sound was amplified by two Patent Applied For (PAF) pickups designed by Seth Lover, a Gibson employee. These were the first humbuckers. Shortly before the Futura went into production in 1958, McCarty, who had designed the new body shape, renamed the model to the Explorer and the headstock was quickly replaced by a new one in the form of a hockeystick. McCarty’s new line was a big fiasco. The Moderne was never put into production and the Explorer and Flying V were no longer produced within a year. It is estimated that fewer than fifty original Explorers were built.
