Gibson guitars, along with "Back to the Future" star Michael J. Fox and writer/producer Bob Gale (who worked on all three films in the "Back to the Future" trilogy), are teaming up to produce "Lost to the Future," a documentary that will chronicle their search to track down the missing guitar, which appears to have been lost somewhere in the space-time continuum (or as Fox has jokingly put it, "in some teamster's garage").
It's hard to imagine something so famous going missing, but the trailer for "Lost to the Future" explores what the guitar means and why the film's cast and crew are so desperate to find it again. Director Doc Crotzer told The Hollywood Reporter that they have "been looking into leads and rumors for a long time, and as you can imagine, we're talking 40 years ago, so memories fade. We weren't in the era of digital trails, or of receipts and things like that. There are conflicting reports too. You can find about as many different rumors as you can people."
The team believes that the guitar disappeared after it was returned to rental house Norman's Rare Guitars in Los Angeles. Crotzer approached Mark Agnesi, Gibsons' director of brand experience and a former GM for Norman's in the 2000's, about the guitar, and they believe it might have been intended to be auctioned off, although they see no evidence that it was actually sold through an auction. Most likely, a customer at Norman's simply bought the guitar. Conflicting stories emerge from there, whether the buyer was a female friend of Norman's or an international buyer from Japan, with any evidence of this sale lost to the sands of time.
With the search failing to produce any answers, the team behind the movie is now asking you — yes, YOU! — if you have any leads on where the cherry red Gibson ES-345 might be. You can call or text 1-855-345-1955 with any leads, or share your tips on the "Lost to the Future" website.
