NAMM 2022: Guild Surfliner retro style offset on a budget
With 7 pickup combinations on offer and retro looks, could this Surfliner be a huge hit?
3,8 / 5,0 | 
The new Guild Surfliner is a retro-looking offset design. With a distinctly Southern California vibe, and with seven pickup combinations will this wallet-friendly model take off?
Surfliner
This Guild Surfliner comes in three colours Sunset Orange, Catalina Blue, and White Sage, each inspired by the company’s Southern California surroundings. The guitar features an offset double-cut body shape and is made from poplar and is partnered with a bolt-on 25.5” scale length satin-smooth maple neck.
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- White Sage
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- Sunset Orange
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- Catalina Blue
Elsewhere you get a string-thru-body design paired with a Tune-o-Matic-style bridge, along with a set of modern-ish medium jumbo frets and a flattish 10” radius. All this should, in theory, add up to a solid instrument with good playability. I think the most interesting aspect though could be the pickups.
Offset Oddball? Or Retro Style?
7 Pickup Combinations
Each guitar has a single Guild Little Bucker LB-1 in the bridge position, paired with two newly-designed DeArmond Aerosonic single-coils in the middle and neck positions. Where it gets interesting, is that each pickup has its own on/off rocker switch situated on the top half of the three-ply pickguard.
This gives players a total of 7 pickup combinations to play with. Which, for a guitar that has an MSRP of $449.99, is pretty decent.
Individual pickup switches offer players bags of tones
Retro Style
I’m not a huge fan of the overall design myself, though I can see it being popular with players that want something retro-styled. It has that almost pawnbroker shop find look to it, and hints of decades past. If you like oddball retro, then this is one for you. There are some neat touches to the design, including the stencil cutout Guild logo on the neck plate and the ’80s Guild logo on that massive oversized headstock. It isn’t the prettiest design I have seen in recent years. Though, I still think the Guild Surfliner be a huge hit, as it offers a lot of bang for your buck.
MSRP – GBP 395 / USD 449 *
More Information
Video
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- White Sage: Guild
- Sunset Orange: Guild
- Catalina Blue: Guild
- Offset Oddball? Or Retro Style?: Guild
- 7 pickup combinations via three switches: Guild
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2 responses to “NAMM 2022: Guild Surfliner retro style offset on a budget”
Ok, would like to test one of these at a dealer. The demo video isnt bad but not exactly what I’d think up when thinking of SURFliner…
They look more like a Fender Marauder than a ‘surf’ guitar. But the specifications are decent. It is just a little fugly to my eye.