If I ran a guitar factory one of the first things I’d do is call up artists I thought were really cool and say “hey, why don’t you come over to my factory and let me build something special just for you”. How great would that be—to have people you think are cool playing instruments you made just for them, right? I mean, what’s the point of running a guitar factory if you don’t get to do cool stuff like that?
You know who else feels that way? Ben Hall. And he DOES run a guitar factory. And so back in 2018 he did exactly that with bassist Jesse F. Keeler of Death From Above 1979. Keeler’s primary guitars up to that point had been a white 70s 4001 and a short scale Dan Armstrong lucite bass, and what he and Ben came up with was a combination of the two: a short scale, 24-fret 4003 that got dubbed the 4030JFK.
So how do you turn a 33” scale, 20 fret 4003 into a 30.5” scale, 24 fret 4030JFK? Pretty simple, actually. You just move the bridge up two and an half inches.
Three “production” models were built for Keeler in 2018: the White one above, a Mapleglo, and an Autumnglo. Keeler has mentioned a prototype as well, but I have not been able to find pictures of that one.
Apart from the shorter scale and the 24 frets, the 4030JFK had a handful of other unique features. The fretboard was finished Richlite, and the “toaster pickups inside a Higain case” were overwound to 12k ohms to create the “hot toasters” that would go on to be used on the 90th Anniversary 480XC. And here’s a fun fact: the 4030 is the only 24-fret instrument with triangle markers to get markers past the 19th fret since a handful of 360s from 1970-71.
You’ll also note the black/checkered binding, and the VERY unusual for Rickenbacker multi-ply black/white/black pickguard. The 4002 is the only other Rickenbacker I can think of that came with a factory multi-ply pickguard.
Another unique feature was on the back.
The heel was carved—“scooped” in the factory’s language—to make those extra four frets more usable. But we still haven’t talked about the last unique feature of Keeler’s custom built instruments.
Maybe you noticed the birdseye on the back of the Mapleglo example. Or maybe you noticed how the wings on all three are a little bit chunkier than they are on modern 4003s. That’s because they came off the famous pallet of “leftover 4002” wings that Ben must have shown Keeler during that factory tour.
And that would have been the end of the 4030 story…except there were hints of a potential future reappearance. Like a one-off 4030 (no JFK) in Blueburst that showed up in the Boutique in July of 2018. Apart from cosmetics (one-ply pickguard, blacked out hardware), the guitar differed from Keeler’s pretty significantly in that it did NOT use leftover 4002 wings—it had the skinny modern 4003 wings—and did not have the “scooped” heel. Whether it was a prototype that got rejected or a “proof of concept” for future production using a current production 4003 as a foundation…who knows?
And then another one-off appeared in the Boutique in August of 2019, although this one is very likely a leftover/overrun from the JFK run. Finished in Bottle Green, it had the chunky birdseye 4002 wings, “scooped” neck, and multi-ply pickguard of the JFK guitars along with the blacked out hardware of the Blueburst one-off.
And that would be that…until 2022 when Wilcutt Guitars in Lexington, KY said “hey, we’d kinda like to order some of those as a dealer special run”, and Ben said “sure, why not!”
8 each were produced in Ruby and Midnight Blue, using the 2018 Blueburst one-off as a template: modern 4003 body with normal “unscooped” heel, finished Richlite fingerboard, checkered binding, black plastics, and blacked out hardware. The Ruby and Midnight Blue finishes were former “factory standard colors” that had been discontinued in 2016 and 2019 respectively.
What was probably an overrun from the Wilcutt run was sold through the Boutique in 2023, identical to the Wilcutt guitars except for its British Racing Green finish.
Wilcutt would order 10 more in 2024–in Autumnglo this time. All other specifications were identical to the previous runs with one notable exception: the Richlite fingerboards were left unfinished.
And that is the story of the 4030 to date. Note that this has never been a “catalog” or “price list” guitar. All the examples that exist have been custom built or special ordered. Which makes it kind of unique: while I can think of other custom built instruments that never made it to the catalog (the 4005/8 springs to mind), I can’t think of a similar case where multiple runs of such a model exist. Does potential demand for the 4030 merit full time production? Probably not. Short scale basses are niche instruments. But does enough demand exist to mean we’ve likely not seen the last of the 4030? I’d wager yes.
re: "...while I can think of other custom built instruments that never made it to the catalog (the 4003/8s spring to mind)..."
You may want to check your catalogs...
The 4002 had a 5-ply b&w pickguard.