ZZ Top

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The ZZ Top guitars

Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill are dedicated rare classic electric guitar and vintage amp and speaker-system collectors ("the pursuit of things sonic"), and famous for their personal custom guitars (including the Billy-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird), many of which were co-designed by Gibbons and master luthier John Bolin of Bolin Guitars.

Gibbons designs his custom instruments with a neck conforming to the specs of his highly-prized 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard (nicknamed "Pearly Gates" after the barely-roadworthy car Billy had sold to raise the money to buy the guitar many years ago). Hill requests that his basses have a neck profile similar to that of the 1951 Fender Precision Bass he used extensively in the early days of the band and often uses to this day.

In the 1990s, Gibbons also contributed to the design of the "Muddywood" guitar, a one-off instrument crafted from a plank of the Mississippi Delta shack in which blues legend Muddy Waters was born. For concerts, a fan favorite pair of guitars are the spinning "white fuzzies" (covered in white fake fur)—"Have Mercy!"—a tribute to hanging fuzzy dice in the custom street rods of the '50s. The spinning mechanism is an off-the shelf instrument modification, a "Wittman Spinstrap" instrument support.

The Eliminator

Billy Gibbons is a fan and avid collector of custom cars and motorcycles. His custom vehicles were a mainstay of the earlier ZZ Top videos and were also used for promotion.

The red 1933 Ford 3-window coupé Hot Rod The Eliminator was customized by Don Thelen at Paramount. The car was featured in a video trilogy from the album Eliminator , consisting of "Sharp Dressed Man", "Gimme All Your Lovin,'" and "Legs." The car was also featured in various custom-car magazines around the globe.

The Eliminator gets eliminated by two wheel loaders in the video "Sleeping Bag" from the Afterburner album, while it saves a young couple from being captured by the "bad boys." The car gets reborn as a mix between the Hot Rod and the Space Shuttle, as shown on the cover of the album. When the Eliminator Shuttle rockets into space, controlled by the ZZ Top crew, a text appears "to be continued...". But in the next video, "Stages", the shuttle only has a very brief showing at the end with the text "Stay tuned...". In the following video, "Rough Boy," the shuttle plays a larger role as the sole customer in a car-wash space station. This video closes the "Afterburner" trilogy with the ominous text "Stay clean...". The Eliminato

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