Paul Gilbert's Ibanez Firemen

Ibanez Paul Gilbert Fireman

While browsing and reading about guitars I came across the story of the Ibanez Fireman. The story goes that Paul Gilbert played around with some pictures of an Ibanez Iceman in photoshop and flipped it around, reversed the headstock and added a cutaway. The Ibanez LA Custom Shop made this guitar for him equipped with 3 hum cancelling single coil pickups that were mounted at an angle. Originally the guitar was called a Reversed Iceman but a fan came up with the name “Fireman”.

In 2009 Ibanez issued 45 of these guitars during the 20th anniversary year of the PGM series. This guitar was called the Ibanez PGM FRM1 Fireman. It features a Korina body, an Ibanez Gibraltar II bridge and Quick Change II Tailpiece. The scale length of this guitar is 24.75 inch and has 22 frets.

A similar guitar with two humbuckers was released for the Japanese market and was called the Ibanez PGM FRM2. Unlike the Ibanez PGM FRM1 this guitar features a mahogany body and a cherry top. Only 5 guitars were issued.

5 Years later Ibanez released the Ibanez PGM FRM25 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the PGM series. The guitar features a 4mm maple flame top and an HSH pickup configuration. The PGM FRM25 is Made in Japan by Sugi guitars and there are approximately 15 pieces made.

Cheaper Chinese made versions are the Ibanez PGM FRM100 which resembles the FRM1 and the Ibanez PGM FRM150 and Ibanez PGM FRM250MF which resembles the FRM25.