Martin Presents Car Talk Click And Clack Special Edition Guitar At 2008 Summer NAMM

(Click for a close-up)

C.F. Martin & Co. is celebrating their 175th Anniversary at the NAMM Summer Session back in Nashville! Recently, the company launched a new online application enabling consumers to create their own one-of-a-kind acoustic guitar, through the acclaimed Martin Custom Shop at http://www.martinguitar.com/ .This latest innovation puts the custom shop program directly into the hands of every guitar player that has ever dreamed of creating their own signature edition model guitar. Located on the Martin Guitar website, the new user-friendly program is a fun and easy way to try almost limitless ideas for creating a unique custom Martin guitar!

Car Talk Click And Clack Special Edition
It began with two brothers and a little do-it-yourself auto repair shop called Hacker's Haven in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It went public in 1977 when the brothers were invited to discuss car repair on Boston public radio station WBUR. It became a national obsession ten years later when National Public Radio (NPR) premiered their freewheeling, slyly subversive and thoroughly addictive show about cars as a nationally syndicated program. It — of course — is "Car Talk" and the brothers are Tom and Ray Magliozzi, known to their listeners as "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers." In recent years, the "Car Talk" phenomenon has grown to include a syndicated newspaper column, books, website, music CDs, and movies, and soon will expand into television. With Tom and Ray well on their way to world domination, it is only natural that C.F. Martin & Co. introduce a Car Talk Click and Clack Special Edition guitar that captures the duo's sense of fun.

The Martin Car Talk Click and Clack Special Edition is a classic dreadnought, featuring solid tonewoods throughout for full, powerful tone; an Engelmann spruce top, East Indian rosewood back and sides, a low profile neck with diamond volute, as well as a African black ebony fingerboard and belly bridge. A rosette in abalone pearl is matched by a colorful mosaic backstrip. Both the nut and saddle are crafted from genuine bone.

With the irrepressible Magliozzi bothers involved, the Martin Car Talk Click and Clack Special Edition takes a quick right turn into humor. Cartoonist and illustrator Bill Morrison, responsible for much of the artwork on the award-winning "Car Talk" website, has created some amusing designs for this unique instrument. The fun begins on the polished ebony headplate, with — just below the Old Style C.F. Martin decal logo — a mother of pearl inlay of Click and Clack in a dilapidated car trailing parts down the fret board in their wake. Those parts and tools — also inlaid in mother of pearl with thin pearl borders - serve as the fingerboard position markers: fender at the 3rd fret, muffler at the 5th fret, muffler pipe at the 7th fret, battery at the 9th fret, tire at the 12th fret and wrench at the 15th fret. Tom and Ray Magliozzi's signatures appear in pearl at the 20th fret.

Advertisement

At the headstock, chrome enclosed tuners are equipped with unique custom cast "Car Talk" buttons — featuring a car similar to the one on the headplate. The Delmar pickguard is also unique, as it bears — thanks to new technology - a "printed" version of the classic "Car Talk" credits (heavy on the puns) that run at the end of the show. Aging toner gives the top vintage character under Martin's flawless polished gloss body finish: the neck receives a satin finish for playing comfort.

"Car Talk" is heard by nearly five million listeners each week on more than 600 public radio stations, and in 1992 won a coveted Peabody Award. "Click and Clack Talk Cars" appears in 350 newspapers and the "Car Talk" website gets more than 400,000 visitors each week. The twosome have authored several books, including In Our Humble Opinion and A Haircut in Horsetown and Other Great Car Talk Puzzlers, created three car-themed music CDs and had a cameo in the Pixar movie "Cars." They also were commencement speakers at MIT in 1999. Their next stop is prime time television; PBS had green-lighted an animated series titled Click and Clack: As the Wrench Turns, which is scheduled to air in summer 2008.

Each C.F. Martin Car Talk Click and Clack Special Edition guitar features two interior labels; one personally signed by Tom and Ray Magliozzi, numbered in sequence, and with recognition for Car Talk's "Esteemed Producer," Doug Berman and Dewey, Cheetham & Howe, and the second incorporating imagery of Car Talk credits and a Car Talk Puzzler. The Car Talk Click and Clack Special Edition is delivered in a Martin case featuring a special "Car Talk" Massachusetts license plate. Factory-installed electronics and/or a 1935 sunburst top are extra-cost options: left handed instruments may be ordered with no additional charge. Authorized C.F. Martin dealers will begin taking orders for the Car Talk Click and Clack Special Edition guitar immediately, and participating dealers will be listed on the Martin website.

For more information, visit their web site at www.martinguitar.com.