Peavey relaunches the HP 2 following Eddie Van Halen's death

21 Oct 2020 by Jef |

5,0 / 5,0 | Approximate reading time: 3 Minutes

Peavey announces they are making the HP 2 again following Eddie Van Halen's death · Source: Peavey

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Peavey has just officially announced that it’s restarted the production of the HP 2, following Eddie Van Halen’s death earlier this month. The guitar is based on the Wolfgang model developed with Ed during his time with the company. As you might remember, Eddie collaborated with Peavey in 1996 on the Wolfgang range, having left Ernie Ball Music Man the year before.

The Peavey HP 2 is back

Peavey had a good run with Eddie Van Halen and the Wolfgang model, although he left to form his own company, EVH, in 2004. Peavey began building Ed’s 5150 amps in 1992 and produced a prototype guitar for him that helped lure him over from Ernie Ball Music Man. This marked the birth of the Wolfgang – named after Ed’s son – and the rest is history.

Ed and Peavey parted ways when Ed launched EVH with Fender. Peavey carried on selling the HP2 model for a while, which is essentially a Wolfgang model in all but name (HP stands for Hartley Peavey). According to the company’s official statement,

Peavey HP 2 NOS, essentially a Peavey Wolfgang without Eddie’s name on

NOS

The new production run of the HP 2 model is being built using aged wood, and marked “NOS” on the back of the headstock. According to an Peavey, the company “entrusted some of the best luthiers in Europe to take over production of the HP 2 … and the first 400 builds will be New Old Stock made from wood that’s been aging since the 1990s.” That could be a bit of a marketing gimmick, but as long as they play as well as the old ones, then they should be great.

I own two of Peavey Wolfgang models. One is a very early solid white US model and the other a Korean Wolfgang Special. Both guitars are insanely good and I know a lot players love these older Peavey Wolfgang guitars, as prices have been steadily creeping up for years. Now that Ed has gone, the prices on the used market are spiralling upwards.

Specifications

The new HP-2 will have a 25.5″ scale bolt-on neck with a contoured neck heel. Maple is used for the top and basswood for the back. The birdseye maple neck has an adjustment wheel at the base and it incorporates dual graphite reinforcement bars along the length for rigidity. The fingerboard has a 15″ radius and is cut from a single piece of wood.

The guitar features two custom-wound Peavey humbucking pickups mounted directly to the body, wired via a single Volume control and a three-way toggle switch for a nice, simple setup. The bridge uses a top mounted, decked Peavey/Floyd Rose licensed locking trem system.

I rate Peavey’s US-made Wolfgang guitars. They’re far more versatile than your standard shredder guitar and as the Floyd is decked on the top of the body, they sustain really well. You can see my one below on my Insta feed, it’s been customised a lot over the years, but it is a real workhorse guitar and I would never part with it.

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