Powers Electric A-Type PF42 Camtail TME-Spec w/Racing Stripes

The first two-tone TME-Spec'd A-Type with racing stripes, spec'd by The Music Emporium.

Andy Powers famously built the A-Type around his love of Southern California cars, surfing, and skateboarding. The CamTail tremolo is a camshaft. The pickup covers are engine turned like hot rod dash panels. The colors come out of a classic sports car palette and the leather case takes its cues from a Porsche interior.

We've seen dozens of different color combos but we asked for something we'd never seen, and they'd never built - racing stripes. This is the very first A-Type built with stripes and we LOVE how it turned out.

If you have not spent time with an A-Type, the short version is that they do not play or sound like anything else. The body is a slim hollowbody, urban ash with a braced solid maple top, trussed by two internal soundposts fitted the way a violin's is, so the top and back move together. That is where the resonance and sustain come from, and it is why the guitar stays controllable when things get loud.

The fingerboard (spec'd with a dark board in this case) uses a split radius rather than a conventional compound, flatter on the treble side for bending and rounder on the bass side for chords. Everything except the tuners and strings is made in Andy's shop, including the knobs, which are cast like surfboard resin left over from the glassing process. No two sets look quite alike.

The feel is slinky and the neck carve is comfortable from the first minute. Plugged in it is fat, warm, and articulate, with the clean tones you would expect and overdriven tones you might not. Push it with real gain and the PF42 pickups compress beautifully with a lot of sustain. Single note runs come easy. The guitar does not fight you.

The car comparison holds up. The A-Type is agile, quick to respond, and built with one foot in tradition and the other pointed forward - this one just happens to look the part.