Guild S-100 Polara

review
GUILD JETSTAR & S-100 POLARA
90
Guitarist september 2018
GUILD JETSTAR & S-100 POLARA £539 & £629
CONTACT Selectron UK Ltd PHONE [phone] WEB www.guildguitars.com
What we want to Know
What’s the story here?
Guild’s latest solidbody release,
the Jetstar, hones in on a simple
solidbody design that first appeared in
the 60s. It was the only single pickup
model in a trio that included the
Polara and more famous Thunderbird.
But this Jetstar has two pickups…
Ha, Guild aren’t calling this a reissue
– it’s based on the body design of
the Jetstar and Polara that appeared
in 1963 before Guild redesigned
them to the more well-known style –
clearly based on Gibson’s SG – that
appeared in the 70s as illustrated by
the S-100 we have on review too.
Where are these Newark St.
models made?
Up to now all the Newark Sts have
come from South Korea but the
Jetstar is their first electric to be
made in China.
The 70s-era S-100 Polara was the only
solidbody in the relaunched-by-Fender
line back in 2013. It was joined in 2016 by
the out-there 60s-style S-200 T-Bird (née
Thunderbird) followed, in 2017, by a more
conventional ‘ST’ version that swapped
the Hagstrom vibrato for a regular
tune-o-matic and stud tailpiece, along
with paring back the T-Bird’s original-style
internal circuitry.
The new Jetstar comes again in 60s style,
although its S-50 designation has been
lost and the days of it being a single pickup
guitar have been consigned to history. So
how does this new model stack up against
that original S-100?
Let’s take a look…
G
uild was rather late to the electric
solidbody market, taking until
1963 before it released a trio:
the twin pickup S-200 Thunderbird
and S-100 Polara and the single pickup S-50
Jetstar. While all three models featured
asymmetrical three-a-side headstocks they
borrowed from previous designs: the S-200
had clear Jazzmaster/Jaguar style, the
S-100 and S-50 a more conservative offset
dual cutaway shape.
All three had a concave cutaway on their
bases, while the S-200 and S-100 even
included built-in flip-out stands on their
backs. They lasted through the decade,
before Guild took a more Gibson SG-like
route with its 70s solidbody range.
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1. Like many modern Guild
guitars, the Jetstar uses
Guild’s mini-humbucking
LB-1 pickups with
seemingly mismatched
DCRs of 5.14 kohms
(bridge) and 7.37 kohms
(neck) caused by
different gauge coil wire
GIT437.rev_guild.indd 90 09/08/2018 18:42