The Explorer was the second of Gibson president Ted McCarty’s three Modernistic designs.

Gibson debuted the Explorer with the Flying V in 1958, but the V made the 1958 catalog while the Explorer did not, and the Explorer lagged well behind the V in production as well as sales.

The earliest version of the Explorer featured a “split” V-shaped headstock, which was the way McCarty drew it in his patent for the model. The design required the longer strings to bend around the tuner posts, however, and the split headstock was quickly replaced by a more practical and functional “scimitar” shape with six-on-a-side tuner configuration.

The Explorer’s body was essentially a distorted and angled version of a standard guitar, complete with upper and lower bouts and body waists, and in that respect it was less radical than the Flying V’s, but the Explorer’s huge “tail fin” made it feel heavy and unwieldy compared to the lighter Flying V, and when the Flying V failed to generate sales, the Explorer never had a chance.