Gibson brings the Victory S-style back – new and improved with coil-splits and an Explorer headstock

Gibson has raided the archive to resurrect its long out-of-production Victory model, and taking the opportunity to make the sorts of refinements that make this ‘80s cult classic a better electric guitar – and maybe the type of guitar that would have been successful the first time around.

The ‘80s were a time of creative expansion for guitar. With the high-performance S-style the prevailing design archetype, Gibson looked to get in on the action with the Victory. It didn’t quite work out. But its prospects look more promising in 2024. This is is a Victory all right, but it is not the same Victory.

Available with figured or plain tops, the relaunched Victory comes fresh out of Nashville with a raft of updates, most notably – and most welcome of all – is an updated headstock. There is a strong case to be made that the old headstock – cool in a pawnshop way but a little out of place – is why the Gibson Victory of the ‘80s mostly stayed there.

Well, the Victory of 2024 now comes with an Explorer headstock, and it looks so right we wonder why it wasn’t used in the first place.

This new Victory might share the asymmetrical S-style shape of its forebears but look closely and it appears the body’s contours have been updated. This looks a much more ergonomically pleasing instrument. Gibson says it weight has been improved – code for lighter? – and crucially it is a better balanced instrument.

Gibson didn’t go all-in and stick a Floyd Rose as standard on the original Victory and it has resisted the temptation to do so here.

This might be what you’d colloquially call “Gibson’s Superstrat” but when you dig into the spec it is really quite far removed from the hot-rodded S-style that have dominated hard-rock and metal guitar . From the glued-in SlimTaper neck to the Tune-O-Matic bridge and aluminium stop-bar tailpiece, the design is very much Gibson.

That said, the scale length is 25.5” and we do have a compound radius ebony fingerboard with 24 frets. Acrylic dot inlays run up the bass-side of the fingerboard.

Interestingly, the frets are medium jumbo, a similar gauge to what you might find on today’s ES-335 or Les Paul. Nashville resisted the temptation to stick extra-fat jumbo frets on this.

The build is vintage Gibson, too. The plain-topped models are all mahogany, while the figured top models have a AA figured maple top. All have been spritzed with nitrocellulose. There is single-ply binding around the fingerboard but the headstock and body are left unbound.

The Victory might have come out of the ‘80s but seeing it fresh again, and refreshed, it looks like it could have debuted in any era, the 24-fret fingerboard notwithstanding.

Where it really sets itself apart is in the pickups. All models have a pair of ‘80s Tribute Humbuckers, which are selected via a three-way toggle mounted between the volume and tone controls.

There is a push-pull function on the volume that activates a coil split, while the push-pull pot allows you to select the inner and outer coils of both pickups. There should be an abundance of spanky tones here to complement the more full-blooded roar of the undiluted humbucker sound.

These all ship in a hard-shell guitar case . The Victory Figured Top is offered in Smokehouse Burst, Wine Red Burst and if that’s not radical enough for you there is Iguana Burst. It is priced £2,199. The regular Victory comes in Dark Green Satin, Gold Mist Satin and Dark Walnut Satin, and is priced £1,749.

And there is a Gibson exclusive Figured Top model in Translucent Ebony Burst, priced £2,149. That will be available only at the Gibson Garages in Nashville and London, or online at Gibson , which is where you can find out more.