Charvel

San Dimas

Named for a town, not a star: the place where a repair shop learned to build what players asked for.

San Dimas, California, 1978. Grover Jackson buys Wayne Charvel’s repair shop. What comes out the door over the next few years are Strat-shaped guitars with bolt-on necks, built to order, and before long the town’s name is the name of the guitar.

Introduced: 1979
Type: Solidbody electric
Class: Production

Read the story · 3 min

All guitars More Charvel

Photo: Nenad Stojkovic / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0USA-made koa San Dimas Style 1 HH with rosewood board and gold Floyd, a different color/pickup spec from the Pitch Black HSS table.

The short version

1974
A repair shop
Wayne Charvel is fixing guitars, first in Azusa, then in San Dimas.
1978
Grover buys in
Grover Jackson buys the shop, and the custom bolt-ons start to define the name.
1979
The San Dimas
The year that gets stamped on the San Dimas as a catalog guitar.
1984
A different guitar
The Jackson Soloist arrives from the same shop family, with a neck-through build.

Side A

A town, not a star

Most famous guitars are named after a person or a number. This one is named after a small city east of Los Angeles, and that tells you most of what you need to know about it.

Wayne Charvel had a repair shop. In 1978 Grover Jackson bought it, in San Dimas, and the shop kept doing what a good repair shop does, which is hear exactly what a player hates about their guitar. The guitars that came out of there were Strat-shaped bodies with bolt-on necks, built to order, and they’re what made the Charvel name. Call it 1979 for the San Dimas as a catalog guitar.

The model isn’t named after a hero. It’s named after an address.

Too wild for the badge

You can learn what the Charvel name meant from the guitars that didn’t get it. When the shop built Randy Rhoads his V, it was too radical to wear the Charvel badge, so it became the first guitar with Jackson’s own name on it. In 1984 came the Jackson Soloist, a neck-through, where one long piece of wood runs from the headstock right through the body.

The San Dimas is the other kind. Bolt-on. The neck is held on by four screws through a plate, the way Leo Fender did it, so a shop can swap it, shim it, or build it to your order without starting over. Same shop family as the Soloist, completely different guitar. Don’t let anybody sell you one as the other.

The loaner

Here’s how a Charvel gets into a player’s life. Phil Collen of Def Leppard got his as a loaner: the guitar Mutt Lange handed him was a Charvel, a San Dimas-family bolt-on. Then he ordered a Soloist, and that’s the sparkly one you’ve seen in the videos. The loaner came first.

Warren DeMartini of Ratt turned up in Charvel’s ads in the period, too. Ratt fans can tell you about a lot of his guitars, and not all of them belong here. Lending a guitar and running an ad are how a small shop’s name got around.

Flip the record · By the numbers

1978
The year Grover Jackson bought Wayne Charvel’s shop.
4
Bolts holding the neck on. That’s what makes it a Charvel and not a Soloist.
12"–16"
Compound fingerboard radius on today’s version. Round for chords, flat for bends.
1
Knobs. A single volume, no tone control.

Side B

What a San Dimas does now

The San Dimas you can buy new is the USA Select San Dimas Style 1, which is a mouthful, so here’s what it means under your hands.

There’s no pickguard. Everything is routed in from the back, so the front is just alder and paint. The maple neck has rolled edges, so it feels broken in on the first day. The fingerboard is a compound radius, rounder down by the nut where you play chords and flatter up high where you bend, so notes don’t choke out on a big bend. Jumbo frets, 22 of them.

There’s one knob, a volume, and a five-way switch. That’s it. The version in black has a DiMarzio Super Distortion at the bridge, a humbucker built to be loud, and a pair of smaller DiMarzios in the middle and neck. The vibrato is an Original Floyd Rose, sitting on top of the body rather than sunk into it. It locks at the nut and the bridge, so you can dive-bomb and still be in tune when you come back up.

Still named for the town

The guitar is built in Corona now, as regular production. The Soloist went its own way with the Jackson name. So did Randy’s V. The bolt-on, built for whoever walked in with an idea, kept the old name.

Pick one up and read what it’s called. It isn’t a player, and it isn’t a number. It’s a town where a repair shop built guitars the way the people walking through the door asked for them.

The cast

The people, and the specific guitars, that made the legend.

1974
Wayne Charvel
The name on the headstock
Ran the repair shop that the whole story grew out of.
1978
Grover Jackson
The shop in San Dimas
Bought the shop in 1978. Put the Charvel name on the bolt-ons, and his own on the guitars too wild for it.
Mutt Lange
The loaner
Handed Phil Collen a Charvel, a San Dimas-family bolt-on.
Phil Collen
A borrowed Charvel, then a Soloist
The Def Leppard guitarist played the loaner first. The sparkly guitar in the videos is the Soloist he ordered after.
Warren DeMartini
Charvel, in the period ads
Ratt’s lead guitarist. Not every guitar he played belongs on this page, so we won’t pretend otherwise.

Liner notes

Specs, construction, rarity, value, and every source we used.

Charvel’s bolt-on, no-pickguard superstrat — San Dimas, not a Jackson Soloist, and not a So-Cal.

Body: Alder, San Dimas Style 1, no pickguard
Neck: Bolt-on quartersawn maple, Speed Neck, rolled edges, graphite reinforcement typical of the USA Select line
Fingerboard: Maple, black dots, 22 jumbo, 12"–16" compound
Scale: 25.5" (648 mm)
Pickups: HSS (Pitch Black dealer example: DiMarzio Super Distortion DP100 bridge, HS-2 DP116 middle and neck)
Hardware: Floyd Rose Original, non-recessed, 2-point, 37 mm block; Charvel die-cast; black
Electronics: One volume; 5-way “super” blade
Finish: Pitch Black satin lacquer (this dealer example); other USA Select colors exist
Nut: Floyd Rose Original locking, 1.6875" (42.86 mm)

Open the full research fileConstruction details, the complete player record, production numbers, dated value estimates, and sources

Current production typical = USA Select San Dimas Style 1 HSS FR (USA). Charvel factory page: est. U.S. street $2,499.99 (Satin Plum listing, 26 August 2026). Music Store Live Pitch Black $2,499.99 (SKU 2835003768). Pickup sets are not one recipe across every color: this table follows the Pitch Black dealer sheet (DiMarzio). Do not flatten Satin Plum or So-Cal HSS onto those DiMarzios.

Construction

San Dimas is the bolt-on Charvel superstrat from the San Dimas, California shop Grover Jackson was already running. Not a Jackson Soloist (neck-through; jackson-soloist). Not a Rhoads V (Jackson’s first named guitar, too radical for the Charvel badge). Not a So-Cal: USA Select So-Cal Style 1 HSS FR is the pickguard sibling at the same $2,499.99 street this pass. San Dimas Style 1 is the no-guard, rear-routed cut. Not a Pro-Mod, not a DK24, not a Guthrie Govan, not a Super-Stock unless sourced as this silhouette.

Charvel as a production badge: Wayne Charvel’s repair shop; Grover Jackson buys in 1978; San Dimas custom bolt-ons define the name. Wikipedia lead puts Charvel production in that late-1970s shop — keep 1979 as the catalog year for the San Dimas object, not 1984 Soloist. Jackson Soloist is 1984. Do not date a San Dimas from a Soloist J-serial.

Floyd on USA Select is Original, non-recessed. Licensed Floyds on Pro-Mod imports are not this table. One volume, football jack, 4-bolt neck plate.

Players

Do not steal Soloist, Rhoads, or JEM players. Beck’s pink/orange Grover guitars on jackson-soloist are Soloists. Collen’s sparkle video guitar is a Soloist; the loaner Mutt gave him was a Charvel — that loaner is San Dimas-family bolt-on, not the Soloist he then ordered (MusicRadar, Soloist 30th).

Eddie Van Halen is not a catalog San Dimas SKU. The Frankenstrat / 5150 / Wolfgang story stays off this plate unless a named Charvel San Dimas is sourced. Not sourced here.

Warren DeMartini (Ratt) is a named Charvel player in period ads; living signature SKUs are not this USA Select table. Do not flatten every Ratt guitar onto San Dimas Style 1 HSS FR.

Rarity

USA Select San Dimas is regular Corona-era production, not a numbered custom-shop census. Charvel does not publish San Dimas unit totals. None invented. 1979–80s San Dimas customs are finite shop guitars; serial tables date them, they do not count a run.

Value

Informal estimate, 26 August 2026. Not an appraisal.

Ask is not sold. Reverb Price Guide bot-walled this pass. No invented median.

New street. USA Select San Dimas Style 1 HSS FR $2,499.99 (charvel.com est. U.S. street; Music Store Live Pitch Black). USA Select So-Cal HSS FR same $2,499.99 — different guitar. Equipboard (updated 4 June 2026) new $2,499.99, used available $2,099.99 — aggregator, not a hammer.

Used. No clean 2024–26 sold sample isolated this pass. Do not invent a midpoint.