Hi All,
Here's a few shots of Johnny Winter's custom Advance Time. This guitar is part of the Willis Family Collection. Mr. Winter's guitar tech. sent this back to Time in 86 for some adjustments. This was right as Time was closing. Luckily this guitar and quite a few more were spared from the fire. The only person that's played this guitar is JW himself....
The guitar itself is made from Hawaiian Koa with a very fine Tiger-striped maple neck. It sports a bound ebony board and peghead. The scale length is 25 1/2". All hardware is Gold. The inlay is alternating Abalone and rare colored Pearl. The neck is more narrow than the standard Time, more like a Gibson Firebird. No big surprise there! The center pickup is a dummy. Johnny requested a Stratocaster like guitar sound, but never liked the center pickup. It got in the way. This guitar is exquisite! This is the only Advance Time I can think of with the full blown Artist trim.
This guitar was the 1st guitar Time built according to JW's request. Until then Mr. Winter had been using and endorsing the Headless IC and Explorers. We were working toward a 'Johnny Winter' model here. In hindsight, we should have taken pictures! I don't think any Winter/Time guitar pictures exist....
I recently saw the Willis Collection and will be providing more details soon. The big deal here is that many guitars survived the fire. I've been in shock the last few weeks.
Chris