The 6 Most Ridiculous Guitar Designs

In the world of music, there's always going to be innovation, creativity, and products of intense drug use masquerading as innovation and creativity. The following guitars are primarily examples of that last category.

6 The Gittler Guitar

Gittler Instruments

The Gittler Guitar looks like someone put strings on a skeletal robot penis to fulfill a prophecy. It's made of 6AL-4V aircraft grade Titanium, which gives the guitar incredible resistance to damage, should you be swinging it like a battle ax into crowds of ex-patriots while playing Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover." Each string also has its own pickup (most other guitars have one or two for the entire instrument), because nothing about this instrument makes one practical bit of sense. You can buy it right now for $3,995, or you can see it in action first in the music video for "Synchronicity II" by The Police, which is the greatest test drive in the history of time.

5 The Pikasso Guitar

The logic problem that is the Pikasso Guitar was specially built for jazz fusion virtuoso Pat Metheny, who can play that stringed Escher painting better than the rest of us can do most things. It has four necks and 42 strings, the tension of which puts the instrument under about as much pressure as a deep sea diver. If you happen to break a string in the middle of a particularly heartfelt rendition of "Country Roads," we imagine the resulting explosion would send your arms and face rocketing into a different time zone.

4 Present Arms

ARGRURN FEEEE IREEEEEURI EBIRTHFLEEAT — Yoshihiko Sato

It would be impossible to play this "guitar" without looking like a vaudeville comedy routine. It's actually an art project called "Present Arms," part of a series of installations by Japanese artist Yoshihiko Sato. He has gone on to make more Present Arms in different colors and a doughnut-shaped guitar called Glory Arms that can only be played if you are Dr. Octopus and/or a fielding baseball team with two designated hitters.

3 The Wangcaster

The 6 Most Ridiculous Guitar Designs — Carver Doug

The Wangcaster takes some of the subtlety out of being a rock musician by allowing you to hammer out Motley Crue songs on a giant wooden cock. A pet project of a woodcarver named Doug Rowell, the Wangcaster apparently carries the personal endorsement of Jon Bon Jovi, who sagely declared, "Wow, that guitar has balls!" It sure does, Jon. It sure does. In addition, the Wangcaster will be in fierce competition with your Hellboy comics and your LEGO pirate ship for the space beneath your bed, reserved for things you hide when bringing home dates from the Macaroni Grill.

2 The Mermaid

The Mermaid is a wooden mermaid sculpture with a guitar sticking out of its abdomen that is impossible to play without looking like you are a desperately lonely sailor from the 18th century trying to impregnate his captain's figurehead. The guitar seems like an afterthought, as if the sculptor had experienced a brief moment of doubt that a plaintive naked mermaid wasn't the craziest thing he could build and tacked a musical instrument onto her belly to crush his apprehension. It doesn't help that she's making the same face as Han Solo while frozen in Carbonite. Unless, of course, mute terror masks are your thing, in which case you may be more interested in the next entry.

1 Teenar, the Teenage Girl Guitar

The Teenar is the unholy combination of guitar and teenage girl mannequin created by Lou Reimuller, who is pictured posing with his creation presumably seconds before getting tackled by police and interrogated about a crime simultaneously unrelated and completely related in every terrifyingly conceivable manner. There is no reason to ever play this guitar and doing so is likely illegal in most parts of the world.

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