Taylor 317E Grand Pacific

New design but a vintage voice

- Rob Laing

There is no single ultimate guitar: that be-all-and-end-all instrument that will end our search for perfection. And yet we chase the idea, an idea that will change as our tastes as players change. The quest is all part of the fun, of course, but sometimes innovative guitars come along that change our perception of what we want and need, and they actually bring new things out of us. We think Taylor’s new Grand Pacific is one of them.

Taylor has already been busy innovating with last year’s V-Class bracing (see p92), a genuinely fresh take on acoustic construction from Master Builder and design maverick Andy Powers. This Grand Pacific is a V-Class guitar, but it’s a brand-new shape for the company that goes even further in changing the perception of what a Taylor acoustic can sound like.