2001 German Vázquez Rubio No. 021401 SP/CY

This 2001 German Vázquez Rubio No. 021401 is a flamenco guitar with a spruce top and cypress back and sides, made in Los Angeles, California – a flamenco blanca with a cutaway and slightly more compact measurements all around.

A Blanca with a Cutaway

The materials are of very high quality and a pleasure to look at, including a perfectly quarter-sawn spruce top with plenty of cross-grain silk. The basses are steady and full and the trebles very clear and easy to work with, and the whole guitar is extremely responsive and open, with plenty of volume.

Playability and Label

Playability is a dream, with a very low flamenco action, a cutaway and slightly more compact measurements all around – a 648mm string length and a 51.5mm nut. The 2001 label, with the pictorial design German used in those years, is numbered 021401.

German Vázquez Rubio: Early Years in Paracho, Mexico

German Vázquez Rubio (also known as G.V. Rubio) has been making guitars since 1968 – over fifty years – and has developed his own signature sound that guitarists have come to love. He was born in 1952 in Paracho, Mexico, where there is an abundance of fine luthiers (with few exceptions, all of the finest guitars in Mexico come from Paracho). German’s first formal training began at eleven years old, when he left school to help support his seven siblings and went to work in the workshop of his uncle, Manuel Rubio. There, even at his young age, he made a conscious effort to make guitar building his life’s work.

“Desde 1968”

In 1968, at the age of sixteen, he made his first concert-level guitar (hence his label reads “Desde 1968”). German has since been able to learn from many different master builders such as Félix Manzanero, José Romanillos and Thomas Humphrey. He now resides in Los Angeles, California, where he builds a variety of both classical and flamenco models. He is also the maker of the real-life guitar from the Disney/Pixar film Coco – you can read more in our article on German Vázquez Rubio and the real Coco guitar.

First Prize in Mexico

In 2000, German won First Place at the Concurso Nacional de Constructores y Ejecutantes de Guitarras, Mexico’s national guitar-making competition.