Gibson Thunderbird (2nd issue)

The non-reverse body Thunderbird

Gibson had received complaints from Fender about the styling of the original Thunderbird. This is somewhat surprising, as the Thunderbird does not look like a Fender, but at the time, sales had been poor and it was decided to remodel both the Firebird guitars and Thunderbird basses

New Features

In May 1965 Gibson stopped producing the older reverse body Thunderbird and redesigned the instrument for a 1966 launch. Whether any were actually available in 1965 is unclear, however price lists were heralding the new instrument as early as June 1965. Interestingly enough the Thunderbirds were not as expensive as the much smaller EB basses. The Thunderbird IV was priced at $289.50 compared with $337.50 for an EB3, whilst the II was $239.50 - just 50 cents less than the $240 EB0.

The major difference to the 1963 Thunderbird was of course the reverse body style, but also the neck was now the typical glued in 'set neck' that appeared on all other Gibsons of the period. The new set neck meant the body was one flat slab, without the raised central portion. This allowed an unusual scratchplate that covered a lot more of the guitar body. The hardware and pickups remained unchanged, though the nickel plated covers were all switched to chrome.

Commercial sucess

The shipping figures are as follows:

	1966	1967	1968	1969	total
Thunderbird II	361		67	7	435
Thunderbird IV	131	120	31	1 (6)*	283 (288)*

There are two sources of Gibson shipping data, first the book 'Gibson Shipment Totals 1937-1979' by Larry Meiners, however an anonymous but quite comprehensive document being sold on ebay entitled 'Gibson Epiphone Kalamazoo Maestro shipping totals 1948-1969' lists a different figure for 1969 Thunderbird IVs