Gibson Firebird was born as a result of cooperation between Gibson and car designer Ray Dietrich. In search for new shapes and designs Ray took the Explorer shapes and rounded the edges. The Firebird is also the first Gibson’s solid body electric guitar series with through-body neck joint. Another remarkable feature of this series is that the first models had the right-hand (treble) horn of the body longer than the other. For this feature they were unofficially called “reverse”. Nowadays both options (reverse and non-reverse) are available. However, the reverse option remains much more popular.