Although Yamaha stood apart from many Japanese companies in the “copy era” of the 1970s, establishing itself as a company with it’s own recognisable and successful designs, Gibson’s ES-335 – the original semi-hollowbody model – was simply too tempting for Yamaha to resist copying in the late 1980s.

The SA-1100 had ever-so-slightly narrower horns than the ES-335, and the headstock had two dips in the top rather than Gibson’s trademakrked single-dip “dove-wing” shape, but it was unashamedly a copy of the legendary Gibson semi-hollow model.

Actually, when it came to performance, the SA-1100 did the Gibson one better, by way of a coil-tap control (which the 335 had from 1977-81).

The SA-1100 was supplanted in the Yamaha line in the early 1990s by the SA-2200, which featured highly figured wood.
Gibson did not fight back until 2000, when the company’s import division released it’s own dot-neck ES-335 copy, called the Epiphone Dot. Still, the SA-2200 maintained enough attention that it carries on the 335-style guitars in today’s Yamaha offering.