The EVH Striped Series ’78 Eruption guitar combines many of the features from the cover of Van Halen’s 1978 eponymous debut album, where Eddie Van Halen thrusts his black-and-white striped Strat-style guitar toward the camera as if he’s showing you the future. When this trailblazing album first appeared, no one had every seen or heard a guitar like that because 22-year-old Eddie made it himself. He played this guitar on his unprecedented and mind-blowing "Eruption" guitar solo, thus its nickname, and almost immediately, this monumental instrument became a timeless icon, symbolic of a paradigm shift in guitar-driven rock and roll. Famed mods along with modernized features and a relic treatment comprise this instrument as if it too had gone out for the first Van Halen world tour—from the paint job to the neck, fingerboard, pickup, bridge and hardware.

Its basswood Stratocaster-style body sports Eddie’s famed white-and-black-striped paint job and has been paired to a quartersawn maple neck with a hand-rubbed satin urethane back finish. The 12"–16" compound radius maple fingerboard with 22 jumbo frets was designed for fast and furious playing styles with maximum comfort, while a heel-mount truss rod wheel makes for time-saving neck adjustments.

A single EVH Wolfgang humbucking bridge pickup provides classic Eddie Van Halen guitar tone—from crystal cleans to fat and rich mids and lows, while the brass nut and six-saddle vintage Fender Stratocaster synchronized tremolo bridge with a 1.692" brass block for authentic EVH tone. Other features include a skirted white Strat-style volume control knob (labeled “tone”) with 500K EVH Bourns low-friction pot and treble-bleed circuit, black pickguard, chrome hardware, oversized strap buttons, EVH neck plate and larger, ‘70s-style licensed Fender Strat headstock with gold EVH logo.