EVH Wolfgang Custom Shop by Peavey
The Peavey EVH Custom Shop was a group of four highly talented craftsmen, each with their own specialty. It opened in January 2002 and
ran until 2004. During the slightly more than a year that they operated out of Leakesville, so much time was spent on each guitar
that they were only producing an average of about one Wolfgang Custom Shop model per day.
Approximately 285 Custom Shop guitars, either based on the Standard or Special model, were produced in Leakesville, of which 92 of these were specific orders and the rest were produced for the Van Halen Vault (a contest held on Van Halen's official website which offered 12 unique guitars) or the NAMM show. The attention to detail showed in the finished product.
Another 130 specific customer orders were produced in Meridian after mid 2003 as well as another 70 guitars, many of which are not really true Customs as they were using up remaining materials inventory. Some guitars where the only upgrade is a rosewood fretboard is technically called a Custom Shop, but most really are not. Van Halen did not want the production guitars to have rosewood fretboards so the only way they could produce them like this was to call them Custom Shop guitars.
Thus, approximately 500 Custom Shop guitars were built from 2002 through 2004, some 220 of them being specific customer orders (more than 100 of those were ordered or purchased by guitar collector Geoff Knapp).
Peavey had an area at their website for people to build (and order) their own Custom Shop guitars. The basic options that anyone could select were: the body wood; top wood; fretboard wood; fretboard inlays; bridge type; hardware color; top color or graphic and matching/standard headstock. The body wood options were basswood (standard), alder, ash, mahogany, or even koa or korina which weren't standard options. Bridge options were a stop tail bridge or a Floyd Rose Tremolo system in chrome (standard), gold or black. The Special models came with the birdseye (not hard rock) maple neck, which was an upgrade from a production special. For the fretboard one could select Birdseye (standard), Rosewood or Ebony. For the inlays they had pearl or black dots (standard), EVH Blocks, Tribal Flames, Skulls or no inlays at all. For the top one could select flame maple (standard), quilted maple, koa or none (solid body construction). There were about 30 colors to choose from including graphics and a custom graphic option.