Westbury Guitars were only manufactured for four short years during the 1970s and 80s.
I was lucky enough to be given a Westbury Deluxe as a gift when I was a kid. It had beautiful sunburst colouring, a solid, heavy body, and a deep warm tone. It was my first guitar, and is still my favourite instrument.
A BIT OF HISTORY: Westbury Guitars was part of the Unicord Corporation, which also produced Univox amplifiers and guitars. The name comes from the location of the original distribution center in Westbury, NY (yeah… a bit strange way to name a guitar).
‘Guitar making operations moved to Japan in 1975 where they continued making guitars until 1982. Production under the Univox name was halted after a fire at the Matsumoku factory. After this time instruments were made in Korea under the name Westbury. The Unicord Corporation was purchased by Korg in 1985, effectively ending the line for good.’ [Wikipedia]
Univox was known for making quality copies of other instruments from Gibson, Fender, Rickenbacker, Epiphone, and other popular brands. The craftsmanship put into a Westbury guitar is obvious if you have ever picked one up. You might have to do a bit of searching in order to find one, though.
Mine is a Westbury Deluxe (W2212) in tobacco sunburst. It’s got a solid maple body, ebony fretboard, and two DeMarzio pickups. The clean sound is just gorgeous; it rings true and clear in a way that I can only describe by playing it for you. And it sounds great dirty too. This guitar has even got a lot of tone while unplugged, so it’s great to use for just sitting on the couch and practicing.
There’s also the Westbury Performer guitar model, which looks somewhat the same, but came standard with two chrome covered humbucker pick-ups. While both guitars are relatively simple, they’re great workhorses that you can use in a lot of different situations, and one aspect of Westbury’s is that the neck is very playable. The action usually pretty good and the electronics were / are actually pretty good. Some of the custom Westbury models had pretty complex selector switches (6 position selector!), which gives you probably more options that most people need.
There’s not much information about Westbury guitars online, really, mostly in forum posts finding other people who own one. There doesn’t appear to be too many of us who own them, but if you do: consider yourself lucky, I know I do.
More info on specs can be found here: http://www.univox.org/guitars/
