1976 Thunderbird "Restoration"

[OldManC]

Neil Young effectively fathered a "genre" with a "faulty" pup... 

You're not wrong! 

[uwe]

So did Dusty Hill with his Telecaster Bass and I had an EB0 LP Junior bass with a broken pup which sounded great - until it gave up the ghost completely and after repair now sounds like any mudbucker. 

George's '86 TBII sounded middish, scooped and slightly distorted with its damaged sidewinder, output was comparatively low too. I wasn't even sure whether it was a nice sound, but no other Bird in my nest sounded like it.

For the record: That pickup damage may very well have happened on its way from the US to ze Reich at the time. Pick up damage is from my experience the most frequent transatlantic transport damage (I've never had a broken neck). That stuff gets rattled a lot even if handled carefully.

I played it for years with that sound and when it stopped working, the repair had it resume the typical Bicentennial sound which I'm not a huge fan of as both 60ies und TB Plus pups have a more even output.