TACOMA

Tacoma was originally part of Young Chang Akki when the Korean piano company invested over $20 million in a 50 acre Tacoma sawmill plant. Young Chang was also producing cheap acoustic guitars at the same time when they decided they should start a private-label brand with the quality woods from the Tacoma plant. This project never got anywhere and in 1997, Young Chang introduced the Tacoma line of guitars. George Gruhn was a design consultant and developed the off center soundhole. By the late 1990s, Young Chang was facing financial trouble (later they filed for bankruptcy in 2004) and they sold the Tacoma line and saw-mill in 2000 to J.C. Kim. Tacoma Guitars never grew as much as many people thought they could under Kim. In late 2004, Fender Musical Instrument Corporation (FMIC) bought Tacoma from Kim. Fender's main reason to buy Tacoma was to provide more manufacturing space for their acoustic line (Guild). In late 2007, FMIC purchased Kaman Music Corporation and in early 2008, they announced that they were moving production of Tacoma acoustic guitars from the Tacoma, WA factory to Kaman's manufacturing facility in New Hartford, CT. Apparently, that never happened, and in April 2009, Fender told their Tacoma dealers that they were dropping the entire Tacoma product line. It is unknown if any Tacoma guitars were built in Connecticut or what Fender plans to do with the Tacoma brand/trademark.