If any of the Climax guitars are a rarity, i.e. the Climax “XL” or Climax “plus”, this is even more true for the Climax Bass. It first appears on a frequently missing insert to the 1992-1993 Catalog, shown below. The contoured swamp ash body, here in Honeyburst finish, has the Saddle-Lock bridge and a single L-series MFD humbucker, much closer to the bridge as the single pickup on the L-1000 but a tad further away than the bridge pickup on the L-2000. What makes the bass belong to the Climax family is the sculpted area around the neck attachment. It is not too surprising this has not been used before or since on any other G&L instrument given the reduced amount of wood around this critical area. The narrow hard-rock maple (BBE-era) #6 bass neck is very similar to the 2nd-style SB-2 and ASAT Bass (see previous pages), with a non-slab, 7½” radius rosewood fingerboard (a maple or a fretless ebony fingerboard were the other options) and 1½” width for the nut. The headstock has G&L branded Ultralite bass tuning machines. It is hard to find more information on this model, even on the Guitars by Leo website. Although few could have been built between 1993 and 1996 with 63 are listed in the Registry, the Climax Bass has not been elevated to Rarebird status. Fortunately there is a review by Michael Duclos written for the March 1994 issue of Guitar World. And he actually bought one after writing the piece! More than a decade later, Willie G. Moseley also wrote about this model in “G&L’s Climax & LB-100”. The Climax Bass and its wiring harness is the ancestor of the L-1500 which made its debut in the 1996 Catalog. The main differences between the 2 basses? The L-1500 lacks the the sculpted area around the neck attachment, while still using a 3-bolt attachment, and has an increased 1¾” nut width.