Gibson crushes hundreds of Firebird X guitars
By mbrooks on August 1, 2019
By Matthew Brooks
There is a video making the rounds showing hundreds of the infamous and less-loved Gibson Firebird X guitar being crushed by an excavator.
We know this guitar has its problems, but is this going a bit too far?
The Firebird X premiered in 2011 with an MSRP of $5,570.
The current price of a Firebird X is about $2,200.
For that much money a buyer should expect a fine musical instrument, right?
Well, not so much.
Gibson packed the Firebird X to the brim with little features.
The guitar was loaded with a variety of “effects, strange pickup configurations, software, and the company’s infamous robot tuners,” according to Reverb.
These unnecessary add-ons meant the guitar ran on batteries.
The result of the odd design was a guitar that was not compatible with most players.
A YouTube video shows the end of hundreds of these guitars.
The tool of destruction was a Link-Belt 160 X3 Excavator. The excavator has a weight of 17 metric tons.
These guitars were literally crushed under heavy metal.
Gibson explained the intentional destruction in a statement.
“The Firebird X destruction video that surfaced months ago was an isolated batch of Firebird X models built in 2009-2011 which were unsalvageable and damaged with unsafe components. This isolated group of Firebird X models were unable to be donated for any purpose and were destroyed accordingly.
“Gibson recently announced its re-launch of the Gibson Foundation. Since 2002, the Gibson Foundation has provided thousands of guitars and donations to schools and charities in excess of $30 million. As a starting point, Gibson has committed to giving a guitar-a-day away over the next 1000 days. 100% of donations to the Gibson Foundation go directly towards giving the gift of music, re-affirming Gibson’s commitment to giving back, helping under-served music education programs, empowering music culture and encouraging the creation of music.”
There you have it. Gibson declared these guitars to be unsafe. At least we can thank Gibson for recording the destruction. These guitars will surely continue rocking on in the great big concert in the skies.
