Nancy Wilson Nighthawk Standard

Gibson worked with the popular Heart guitarist to create her new signature guitar – the Nancy Wilson Nighthawk Standard.

Nancy Wilson Nighthawk Standard

This new Nighthawk is described as “an elegant variation on a contemporary classic design”.

Introduced in 1993, the Nighthawk has served many guitarists with its mixture of Gibson aesthetics and modern implements. The Nancy Wilson Nighthawk Standard follows the same design philosophy, albeit with high-end tonewoods and some minor changes as approved by the artist.

If you feel that the Nighthawk looks unique and yet strangely familiar, this is because it is simply an edgy-stylized take on the popular Les Paul shape. It has the same basic outline but with deeper curves, much like how a typical Super-Strat is similar and at the same time different to a Strat.

The top of the guitar is carved from figured maple while the back is solid mahogany. Aside from the deep curves and cutaway, the body also features a ribcage contour for playing comfort. The neck of the guitar is glued into the body, carved from a solid quarter-sawn mahogany. It has a scale length of 25.5″ and has a round profile that measures 0.818″ at the first fret and 0.963″ at the 12th. The neck is topped by a solid rosewood fretboard, and features parallelogram position markers. Both the body and the fretboard are bound to emphasize the guitar’s shape.

The guitar comes with a two pickup configuration, with the Nighthawk Mini-Humbucker on the neck position and the Nighthawk Lead Humbucker at the bridge. Both pickups feature split coil functionality that ups the total number of tones available to five instead of the traditional three. The neck is said to provide a throaty growl while the angled bridge pickup handles more aggressive duties. The guitar features a five way pickup selector that allows you to utilize brighter single-coil sounds and other in-between tones. Basic tone shaping and volume control is also provided.

The guitar features a gold-plated string-through bridge, which matches the gold plating on the pickup mounting rings and neck pickup cover. The strap buttons and vintage style Gibson Deluxe tuners are also gold plated following the hardware theme. Other unique hardware found on this signature guitar include amber top-hat knobs and a commemorative truss-rod cover stamped with “Fanatic”.

The Nancy Wilson Nighthawk Standard has an MSRP of $2,498. Visit Gibson for more information.

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