Taylor-Made Guitars

Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug spent 10 years as acoustic guitar makers. Now, they insist, they are acoustic guitar manufacturers.

Whereas, as guitar makers, Taylor and Listug turned out only a handful of guitars each month, now, Taylor Guitars ships about 60 guitars each month from its garage-like building in Lemon Grove, a San Diego suburb. And the guitar manufacturing corporation now employs 11 people.

Some Taylor guitars end up on stage in the hands of musicians such as Neil Young, James Burton, Glenn Frey, Prince and John Fogarty. But the bulk get picked up and played by the music world’s relatively unknown pickers and strummers, the “serious amateurs who are on their third or fourth guitars,” said Taylor, who handles the design, engineering and crafting of the instruments.

Taylor Guitars expects to top $400,000 in sales during 1985, making it a small player in the hotly competitive $2-billion annual musical instrument industry, where guitar sales are dominated by such names as Martin, Ibanez and Yamaha.

Taylor Guitars now concentrates on the high end of the market, with its models ranging in price from $800 to $2,000; some of its custom-built instruments command as much as $4,500.

But its owners are ready to expand Taylor Guitars’ offerings to include “mid-priced guitars, ones that sell for about $600,” Taylor said while describing production methods that will cut costs but maintain quality. He also has considered making electric guitars and accessories. “Growth in the high-end can’t keep us going forever,” he said.

Taylor-made guitars are now sold at about 130 retail outlets across the country. Listug, who handles the business and distribution aspects of the company, plans to broaden that based to more than 200 U.S. outlets and eventually sell the guitars worldwide.

But in order to service that many dealers, production will have to be increased, Taylor said. “We’re not close to the Japanese when it comes to productivity, but we’re ahead of the U.S. competition,” he said. Taylor explained the company’s plant is less mechanized than most Japanese guitar makers, but does less hand crafting--and is less traditional in the materials and techniques it uses--than the majority of its U.S. competitors.

Taylor and Listug formed their partnership as teen-agers, giving little thought to how their company would grow. “We’ve gone from three or four (production) people making enough money to support one person adequately, to seven people who make enough product to support 11 people on the payroll,” Listug said.

Its future growth must be better managed, he said. “We’re first-generation guitar manufacturers, we’re entrepreneurs, and we’re bucking traditions.

“But at this point I don’t think we’re doing too badly for a couple of kids who didn’t know what they rere doing. Yamaha and Martin might be bigger than we are, but no one is smarter than we are.”