GUILD’S LATEST EDITION of the S-100 Polara — a model originally introduced in 1963 sporting a “kickstand” body shape and a distinctive spear point on the headstock — is the offset-batwing version that Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil has been playing since 1978.
The model on review here — a production (read “offshore made”) version of the USA-built flagship model that features premium old-growth woods and Jason Lollar pickups —nut before fanning outward to a set of gold-plated Grover Rotomatic tuning machines on a classic Guild headstock that has MoP inlays and a Soundgarden logo on the truss-rod cover.