What a cool Bass! I have seen it before, nice job...
Many years ago (1995/96?) I was working at the main plant for Gibson USA. I was working night shift mainly because they were trying to get me into management and I knew that it was the kiss of death. Back in those days it was a great place to work, mainly because of the workforce... Great people who took what they did very seriously, Management? That was a whole nother matter.
I had been there since 1989 and I had worked hard to get involved wherever I could. This led to me pretty much having the run of the place, I worked in several departments trying to lean as much as I could from the old timers.
I knew the guy from the custom shop that had designed the Nighthawk guitar (Dave
many brain cells ago...), it was a cool design with a definite nod to Fender (scale length). Some people loved it while others couldn't stand it. I thought it was different for Gibson, but kind of cool.
One night after getting caught up with work I was wandering around the plant and I started looking at Nighthawk bodies; I started thinking about at the possibility of making a Nighthawk bass, I took a body off of the line and grabbed a Les Paul bass neck (it was the flat top body model, not a Standard). It didn't take long to fit the neck to the body and I had it glued up. The next evening I added hardware and set it up (no finish, raw wood or whitewood as we called it with two Bartolini humbuckers and passive controls; Vol/Vol/Tone). There was a slight neck dive but nowhere near as bad as a TBird. I thought it came out really well so I showed it to a friend that was a bass player and worked on day shift (night shift was far removed from any of Gibson's management. As far as they were concerned we didn't exist, which was fine with me)... He dug it and he said he would show it to the Gibson Brass. Cool.
After a few days I started hearing about my friend and his idea for a new Gibson Bass... The Nighthawk Bass! I had given him the bass I put together and he decided to present it as his own...
After he presented it to Gibson Brass they took it and decided that the body was too small so they increased it by 10% Then they added TB+(TBird) pickups as well as other small changes. it started looking weird and eventually it was locked awayi n the safe with all of the other prototypes that will never see the light of day.
I've been in that safe...