4.52am Issue: 008 13th November 2016

HOT ROD PROJECTS
Mean, Green, Killing Machine
Over the last few issues we have looked at a
number of UK based Luthiers, and will
continue to do so as we move forward and
if one thing is becoming quickly apparent it
is that there are many routes to the same
place, and as long as the end-result is a
guitar of stupendous quality that meets the
player’s needs, it really doesn’t matter how
we get there.
A modern take on the whole luthier question
is something I was keen to explore with a
time-served yet bluntly pragmatic builder of
some of the UK’s most outrageously cool
guitars, the principal of Glasgow-based Hot
Rod Projects, Roberto Gilberto Luigi Ricci, or
as he is known with a mixture of both awe
and respect, Don Ricci.
I caught up with Don Ricci in a favoured
restaurant with exceptionally attentive
waiters, aiming to find out more about both
Hot Rod Projects and the Hot Rodded Green
Strat, you’ll see in the photos alongside this
article.
Don Ricci, may I ask where Hot Rod
Guitars fits in your portfolio and what
else do you have planned?
“It's actually Hot Rod Projects which is the
parent company to a number of sub
divisions including the "Cheeseboard
Pedalboards" concept which I'll be bringing
to market early next year. I've also got an
idea for a car company called Baby Blue
Racing with the thinking there being
taking older, less loved cars and outfitting
them for the Urban Grand Prix.”
At this point he stands and looks into the
middle-distance, into destiny,
“I'm thinking old shape Fiat Pandas with
rollbars huge mudflaps and full sized roof
racks full of spare wheels and tanks of
petrol, that kind of thing.
I was also thinking about a single-make
race series using Bedford Rascals. I
thought we could do a riff on the
motorbike and sidecar idea where you
have a guy in the back swinging his
weight about to try and keep it upright in
corners. It would be cheap and you could
probably run it in car parks, but I suspect
that the safety element might prove
problematic.
The limiting factors there are that I don’t
even have space to build guitars from
scratch so cars, even small ones are a bit
of a problem.
I also know next to nothing about
mechanics so I may need to find an
accomplice for that one...
As for the guitars I'm pondering a switch
to using "Ricci" as the brand name for the
guitars with "A Division Of Hot Rod
Projects" in small type like the