Epiphone introduces the Casino Coupe, a smaller race car coupe-sized version of their popular guitar.
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Slated for summer 2014 release, participants of this year’s Musikmesse trade show will be able to check out this guitar, along with other new and upcoming Epiphone models.
The Casino Coupe stands out from among the latest model, thanks to artists that popularized the guitar which include The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Gary Clark Jr and more. As the name implies, this guitar has a proportionally smaller and slick body that makes it more convenient to carry and play. Other than the smaller body, everything else follows the Casino design, from neck size to tone woods to pickups.
The body of the Casino Coupe follows the shape and size of the ES-339, albeit without the center block, retaining the full hollowbody design of the original. The body and top are made from 5-layer laminated Maple with single layer ivory binding on the top and back. Peeking through the f holes will show a classic typeface label reminiscent of 60s era vintage models. The white/black 3-layer pickguard complements the classic appeal of the Casino Coupe, which comes in Cherry, Natural, and Vintage Sunburst color finishes.
The guitar has a mahogany hand-set neck that is carved into familiar ’60s SlimTaper shaper with a scale length of 24.75”, patterned after existing vintage models. The 60s style Sloped Dovewing headstock completes the look of the guitar, and it features a 14 degree angle that helps intonation. The fretboard is made of rosewood, with a 12″ radius, 22 medium jumbo frets and parallelogram pearloid inlays.
The vintage “Epiphone” logo is in pearloid and the Kalamazoo-era “bullet” truss rod cover has the Epi “E” logo in white silkprint, as found on vintage Epihone Casino guitars.
Epiphone equipped this guitar with the same “dogear” P-90s as found on standard Casino models. The P-90, which was first introduced by Gibson Brands in 1948, has a distinct single coil sound that is highly regarded by many players. The two P-90s are wired to a two-way pickup selector with independent volume and tone top hat knobs for each pickup.
Epiphone describes the guitar’s sound by saying: “With a full rounded tone, the P-90 is the all purpose pickup, capable of sharp lead tones, clean rhythm punch, and gritty, easily controllable feedback. And combined with the pure hollowbody of the Coupe, a guitarist can achieve almost acoustic tones at low volume.”
Other features of the guitar include a heavy duty ¼” non-rotating nickel input jack, LockTone Tune-o-matic bridge and a Coupe-sized Trapeze tailpiece.
The new Casino Coupe has an MSRP of $748, it is now available for preorder with a retail price of $499 and is expected to ship around the end of April. More information will soon be available at Epiphone.
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