As a teenager Simon Farmer would pore over issues of Supercar Classics magazine, beguiled by the pictures of shapely metal, shiny chrome and the Swinging Sixties. The images in that long-defunct publication made such an impression that he’s never owned anything but classic cars, from an original Volkswagen Beetle, when he was 18, to his current car, a Saab 96 from 1968.
When he was a young design student, memories of those classic cars led Farmer to create the first of his distinctive electric guitars, wrapped around with chrome-plated tubing reminiscent of the bumpers on a classic sports car.
“There’s a similarity between the cars and guitars, in that they’re both dynamic objects,” says Farmer, 46, owner of Gus Guitars. “I like it when something is designed for a purpose, but the form is also beautiful.”
Farmer’s original classic-car-inspired guitars (the prototypes were made entirely of tubular steel) attracted the interest of Seal, then an up-and-coming singer, and appeared in the first video for Killer, his 1990 No 1 hit with Adamski.
Over the years Farmer has worked with Johnny Marr, former guitarist with the Smiths, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Bill Nelson, as well as wealthy collectors, handcrafting guitars in his workshop in Heathfield, East Sussex.
Advertisement
The guitars cost from about £4,000 for the basic model; however, they take at least 150 hours to make, Farmer says, and the base materials are expensive, so his teenage dreams of owning a Ferrari Daytona or Aston Martin DB4 remain frustratingly out of reach. After the Beetle, he got through a classic Alfa Romeo and a different Saab, before buying his Saab 96 for £1,500 in 1998.
1968 Saab 96 V4
An aerodynamic two-door saloon, the 96 was manufactured by Saab from 1960 to 1980, originally with a two-stroke three-cylinder engine, and later with the four-stroke V4 in Farmer’s car.
He was drawn to his version partly by the distinctive Ronal wheels, which revealed it to be a former rally car, but now it was struggling to keep up with the Sunday traffic. In exchange for a custom-built bass guitar, a friend agreed to handle the welding and a respray in period Toreador Red paint, while Farmer fitted the rally-spec engine. “They’re not fast cars in standard spec, so it pays to perk it up a bit,” he says.
He drove his sister Lucy to her wedding in it a few years ago — “We had to remove the front passenger seat to get the dress in” — and enjoys taking long country drives with Betsy, his springer spaniel, by his side.
“On a motorway it’s a pretty joyless experience,” he laughs. “But get it on an A-road at 60mph and it’s a lot of fun.”
Advertisement
If you’d like to feature in A Classic Affair, tell us about you and your beloved at classic@sunday-times.co.uk