Barely used and in excellent, pristine condition. 

The GarageMaster was created as part of a Volkswagen promotional campaign back in 2006 trying to highlight the quality of the car's sound system with a guitar that could be plugged in directly to the stereo, no amp necessary.  It was a big deal at the time and included the participation of the Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash who helped design it.  They were provided as a perk that came with the purchase of a VW automobile and bear the engraved VIN of the car it came with.  Today they are still popular and are widely considered to be one of the best made guitars from First Act.

Being nearly 20 years old, the pearloid layer on these GarageMasters has a tendancy to deteriorate and peel off over time.  You may notice this on other pearloid GarageMasters for sale if you zoom in on the photos.  So the pearloid layer on this guitar was carefully removed to reveal the clean white & cream color scheme you see in the photos.  And making it one of a kind.  The guitar has only been lightly used over the years and is in pristine condition.  




Description/Review from 2006:

A custom limited-edition First Act GarageMaster electric guitar that can be played through a VW car's audio system.

Fresh out of the box, the GarageMaster is encased in a nicely embroidered nylon gig bag. Pulling it from its snug cocoon, the striking white guitar is an exercise in contrasts. The overall size of the solid poplar body appears diminutive but feels all of its seven pounds. The stark white paint is broken up by the three-piece black-on-white pickguard and bright chrome hardware. The body's rounded edges and high-gloss finish run cheerfully counter to the latest guitar fashions based on a distressed or gothic aesthetic.

The two-piece bolt-on maple neck feels solid and slick. It's medium thickness with a C profile and angled headstock. On the business side of the neck, you'll find a spacious sheet of tightly grained rosewood, 22 medium-jumbo frets, and dot inlays. The oversized mother-of-pearl dot at the 12th fret is cut in the shape of the VW logo. The frets are nicely crowned and polished but could use a manicure at the edges. The GarageMaster uses a string-through-body with proprietary string retainer and tail piece. The tune-o-matic-style bridge is allen wrench adjustable and uses waferlike saddles for adjustability and sustain. Up top are enclosed die-cast tuners in a 3x3 arrangement. All the hardware on the GarageMaster is chrome-plated.

The wide neck and large-radius fretboard makes fingering easy, even for musicians with large hands. The satin-finished maple keeps behind-the-neck position changes quick and smooth. The edge of the neck drops off rather sharply, occasionally reminding you of the protruding fret ends. Imported guitars - the GarageMaster is made in China - can have wavy, or even notched, fret surfaces, but the entire fretboard on the GarageMaster is straight and smooth, making string bends and slides a breeze.

Though its unique body and headstock design are First Act characteristics, the real heart of this collaboration are the electronics. This guitar possesses the basic hardware of its peers: a three-way pickup selector switch on the upper bout, two pickups, and the volume and tone controls situated by the bridge near the output jack. To work with the VW's auxiliary audio input, First Act had to boost the guitar's output. It decided to wick some technology from its V-Stack modeling amplifier line to achieve this. A small analog amp-modeling circuit is housed under the lower pickguard amid the tone and volume controls. This preamp is powered by a standard nine-volt battery housed in a snap-open plastic compartment in the back of the guitar. Augmenting the normal volume and tone controls are three sliding switches. They control preamp on/off (with an adjacent blue LED to indicate status), tone shift (treble cut/boost), and choice of output-clean or distortion. A separate master volume knob controls output only when the preamp is engaged. The three knobs sport an aggressive knurling and have a deep-relief VW logo in the top.