Italia Maranello Classic

Bought new 2007. Cost ??319 British Pounda. Blue sparkle top with pearloid back/sides/neck/headstock. 22 medium frets. 3 way toggle and a pair on Wilkinson WVC pups (vintage voiced)Single cutaway. Tune O Matic bridge. Italia diecast tuners. lovely smooth C shaped neck with rosewood fingerboard 12" radius. Floating pickguard

I play blues mostly also have mad half hour playing country rock and R&R. Use a Fender Roc-Pro1000 amp v/occasionally with a comp pedal. Has a rich full sound. Can be used for all kinds of tunes. I use just a touch of gain and it's Santana. Played clean with the tone rolled back it's Peter Green. It's a complete arsenal of sounds. I play other guitars,but this is my favourite instrument. Well done Trevor Wilkinson for the product and Chris Rea for bringing it to my attention.

Arrived really well set-up from the factory. Everything spot on. Can't add anymore.

Don't gig with a band just a couple of mates and not encountered any probs whatever. Excellent finish still not a mark on it. If I gigged I would take the strat. But that's only cos I'm a belt and braces man by nature.

E-mailed customer to check string gauge 10's. as I string the other guitars with 9's. Never had a problem with the Maranello Classic.
12 months warranty

Been playing for about 8years after a 30year layoff. I also play a tele and strat. If pinched would definitely buy anothr 2. I love the style and the way it plays, I only wish I could do it justice. All the people who have seen and heard and played it have all remarked what a fabulous looking guitar, and a friend who owns a guitar shop and has the pick of loads of them said it was a great instrument.
Do yourself a favour go and try 1. You'll buy it.

2004? Silver sparkle, Gotoh tuners with the basic bridge. General configuration as described below. Looks are of course a matter of taste. I love it - some might not. Heathens all.

I play blues and particularly slide. I bought this for slide after seeing Chris Rea (playing properly not AOR phase blandness) and his set-up sounded incredible. Saw the guitar on ebay the next day for what seemed a massive bargain and got it.
Achieved almost the same sound with a cheap Vox valvetronix amp soon as I got home. This guitar is absolutely fantastic for bluesy country rock slide (e.g. Almann Bros; Joe Bonnmassa type sounds). Maybe not the easiest neck if you're into ultra-fast fretting - I wouldn't know.

She can sound a little flat on a purely clean sound, and unplugged sounds frankly plastic and horrid - but plug her in and she sings.

I have a Dan Armstrong solid wood, a strat and a mid range resonator - this guitar fills my les paul gap perfectly at a ridiculously cheap price.

I can't rate this highly enough. Try one.

Bought used from a retailer on Ebay and set up was great

It's solid (maybe a little bottom heavy) and I can't see any problems here. Well made, reliable. Take it gigging and don't worry too much about bashing it up (although that's hard)!

Only a 9 as I haven't tested exhaustively yet

If you play slide or bluesy rock try one and buy one.

Well, I would like to make it clear that this is a submission for a second purchase of a Maranello classic, this time in gold sparkle, 3 months ago. The specs are the same as in my first submission, which was for a silver sparkle one. The gold one has an additional plate behind the stop tail with an "I", giving it a more vintage look.

Let's make it clear these are made in Korea, not Europe, designed in conjunction with Trevor Wilkinson, and these imitate the 50's Hagstrom Delux series and the Goya guitars also made by Hagstrom.

In terms of features, you can assess from the other reviews. I think they are more than adequate.

As previously noted, these sound great, down to the vintage vibe that is obtained from the stock pickups. They are clear, with more than adequate output, and virtually noiseless.

I mostly play punk, with some hard rock. The sound suits me fine. I have friends who like metal, and they have liked the guitar. I don't think it's a shredder's axe, but if they like it i guess it is able to perform.

I bought this guitar off eBay, and full free setup was thrown in. I can't judge the factory setup. I do tech work, and whenever I get my hands on a new guitar, i take it apart.

I can tell you these are well made. Up to this guitar everything has been perfect. My only complain are those darned mini pots. I hate them. I usually replace them with full size pots, and audio pots for volume and linear pots for tone.

Routing is flawless, with shielding paint.

I have played my silver Maranello to the death. I have no doubts this one will hold up just as well.

I did crack the "floating" pickguard, but it was entirely my fault: got really carried away while playing.

Regardless I always change the strap buttons to locking buttons.

Never gig without a backup.

I did email Italia once regarding their Speedster, and their answer at that moment went beyond expectations.

I did need to replace the pickguard, it cracked, under abuse, entirely my fault, but I contacted LPD Music, the Italia US distributor, and found it extremely cheap, and the customer service was excellent.

Customer support is rated from my experience at the moment I purchased and serviced this guitar.

I rate it different for a submission for a Maranello Custom.

I have been playing for around 20 years. I am a nut for the odd ball guitars and I always cheer for the underdog. I am still using a Peavey Triple XXX. I am currently alternating between a Fender Toronado GT, Italia Maranello 1 pup Speedster, the silver Maranello Classic, Maranello Custom, and DiPinto Mach IV in blue and red.

The Maranello Custom is very comfortable, very well balanced, and has a very good balanced tone.

Lost or stolen I would definitely purchase again.

One think I would definitely like Italia to implement is to place serial numbers on their guitars. No serial number, no clue when it was built, and I guess, poor knowledge on production changes over time.

Regardless, I really love these guitars, and they feel and sound amazing for a relatively low cost guitar.

Remember these are all subjective observations, and I recommend you to try them out before purchasing if possible.

I bought an Italia Maranello Classic and I love this guitar above all my others (Strats, Epi's, Gibsons). It's a really like a simplified Les Paul in so many ways. It has 2 humbuckers and only 1 volume and 1 tone and a 3-way switch which is just the way I like it. I don't want 2 of everything like on most Gibsons. It was love at first sight for the finish. Very, very retro. Think Italy 1965! It has a red sparke front, red pearl headstock and red moto back and neck with creama binding and pickguard. White pearl Gohto tuners. Lots and lots of polished crome including metal nameplates that look like the came off a car. The only thing I wish it had is a tremelo. I'm considering installing a Bigsby or Stetsbar.

I play a lot of rockabilly, hillbilly blues, classic rock, and country music. The tone from this guitar is perfect. My Strats can be too thin sometimes and my Gibsons get too muddy. The Italia is just right. I tried to figure out what the point was for the "floating pickguard" - even writing the company and a few dealers - the most I can determine is that its just for show. Even if it was just for "show", its one of the "happy accidents" because the sound of this thing is perfect. I want to install a set of the Wilkinson pickups like these on my 66' Melody Maker.

This guitar's fit and finish is way better than your average American Gibson or Fender. It's one of the finest jobs I've ever seen from Korea or anywhere. The overall quality is comparable to a PRS in quality. The only problem I found was that the fretboard was very dry. A quick rubdown with some lemon oil took care of that.

I do worry about the neck joint. It has a cover with 1 screw on the back that removes to expose only 2 screws holding the neck on. It does have a neck/body joint that is much longer than a Les Paul, so I guess they figure it should hold. It has so far without issue. I would never play any gig longer than 1 set without a backup anyway so I'm useing this as my #1 and my Strat as a backup.

The customer support would only answer 1 question I sent and then would not respond to any others. I guess they have an attitude or they're overworked.

For the money I paid, I feel like I got a fantastic guitar. If I paid over $1000.00, I'd want a little more customer support and something to give me more confidence in the neck joint. I plan to buy another model from this company. I've been watching them on Ebay and they go between $200.00 and $450.00 for the same models. I think they are a one of the best bargains out there.

I believe this is the new model of maranello because its not a glittery finish, or one of the guitars on the site. its a solid body single cut-away les paul shaped guitar and its pretty darned sweet. it has two volume an one tone control, which satisfies me. it has two wilkinson design humbuckers and they sound really good to me, they have that vintage raspy sound, but at the same time are very versatile. the alder body seems nice, i dont really know if i can tell the difference between woods in electric guitars because of the paint (which is quite good for this price of guitar). it has a tune-o-matic bridge, its good for anything....nice grover tuners and 22 large frets and i enjoy large frets.

i play about anything from metal to indie type stuff. it can handle most of it, i wouldnt really recommend it for metal though since the pickups are more of a vintage sound, but it adapts well to about anything else, whether it be warm or dirty. it sounds good for most all standard tuned stuff with the right distortion. it has pretty good harmonics, if youre into the solo stuff. they are quiet pickups and i enjoy that. overall i think this guitar has an awesome sound, the wilkinsons are very impressive, especially for the price range... theres nothing i dont really like, other than the metal part of it, but playinig metal with this doesnt sound bad, you just dont get the deep scary effect as much as you would with pickups like EMG 81's

When i got the guitar i tuned it up and it sounded very good. i had a little bit of fret buzz in the beginning but this went away after playing it for a week or two. the finish is awesome, its solid blue from a distance, but when you get close it has pretty wood grain. its not book matched, but it still looks really nice. i didnt see anything wrong with the guitar. i dont really like the knobs cause they are cheap and light, but they look nice with the guitar and they arent breaking or anything so its ok.

i havent played the guitar live or anything but ive bumped it against my walls and nothing has happened to it... the set neck joint seems solid and the paint isnt chipping or fading. the hardware seems very effecient and the straps are stayin on and seem solid. i would use this in a show without any worries, the only thing i would worry about would be slamming it into something so unless its something i cause, i dont think this guitar would give me any technical or hardware problems (or at least it hasnt since ive owned it) so i would definitely use it without backup and fear

i dont know, i havent had problems with the guitar and i havent needed to talk to italia. they are probably good?

i have only been playing guitar for a little over a year but ive read a lot of reviews and all that jazz, so i think i have a reliable opinion. i also own a esp x tone and i would use these guitars interchangeably, and the esp was 200 bucks more... so i believe the italia is well worth the 450 bucks. id say the thing i most appreciate about this guitar is its character, its not something you see people playing often and it just has a really nice sound, classy looks and is built quite solid.

I guess 2004??? It's quite funny: these are designed by an English guy, made in Korea and have the name Italia.... go figure. It is a solid body two piece agathis wood with silver sparkle finish, black binding and... get this, the sides and back are laminated with pearloid material, black on mine. The shape is a smaller Les Paul single cutaway without the pointy bout. The neck is hard maple with black bound 22 fret 25" scale rosewood fretboard: the neck's back and the headstock are also laminated with the pearloid material. The fret markers are square acrylic swirl. It has 3x3 Gotoh tuners with pearl buttons. Two nickle covered humbuckers, one volume, one tone and a three position toggle switch. It has a stop tail tune-o-matic configuration. This guitar has the weirdest pickguard out there: it is molded plastic and you can adjust the whole pickguard's height: they call it floating pickguard. The pickguard holds the pup's, the switch, the pots and the output jack. The guitar model's name is kind of like a car's nameplate on the upper bout and the guitar manufacturer nameplate on the headstock. Very reminiscent of the obscure 60's guitars.

The neck is a long tenon bolt-on, not glued or set-in. It is held by one single screw with a vertical thin strip neckplate.

I play punk, alternative and almost anything that I can play. I was pleasently surprised by the sound of this guitar. The tone is not flat, the Wilkinson design pickups actually surprised me greatly. I was expecting cheap stale low output bu these are very good... sort of like Gibson's 490R and 498T. I run it through a Peavey Triple XXX amp and it drives it well. This guitar can be a little bright but nothing offensive that cannot be managed with the tone pot. Otherwise the tone output is very balanced. I seldom use the neck pup, but I guess it's OK. I really like the sound of this guitar.

The setup was a little screwed, the action was high, and I like my action medium high, the intonation was a bit off, and the fretboard seemed a little dry. Nothing that cannot be fixed. The pickup height was properly adjusted. The finish is flawless. I was surprised that there was minimal string rattling: only when striking the strings really hard. I have a nasty habit of taking apart all my guitars the day I get them but this one I haven't mutilated ye, so I cannot give you any more information regarding the routing. I guess I am kind of apprehensive of messing up the floating pickguard's setup. All the other hardware looks good. The stoptail becomes a little troublesome when changing the strings since it is not the typical Gibson style stoptail. The strings do not go through a hole, they go underneath the stoptail into a groove.

It has held its own for the last couple of weeks. There has been no problems. i always change the strap buttons to Straplocks, and is something I always recommend. I never play without backup, but this guitar has not fallen apart on me or caused any trouble while gigging.

Never dealt with them.

I have been playing for a long time and have gone through a lot of guitars, Fenders, Gibsons, Washburns and more recently Fernandes. I actually like oddball guitars and that was my main interest on this one. I was already making plans on changing a couple of things when I purchased it, but I now think I'll keep it stock. All Fenders and Gibsons I have or have had had undergone some type of modification. I think it is an awesome guitar for the money. For the moment I have put away the Fenders and the Gibsons and used the Maranello and a Fernandes Monterey Deluxe as my main guitars. The Maranello was a pleasent surprise and I really, really like it. Check out their web site. I am thinking of purchasing another ITalia: the Maranello Speedster. I think it will be as good if not better than this one. Remember these are subjective observations so if you can, go try one to determine if this guitar is for you.