A viral video of guitar-strumming Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has prompted Vancouver guitar-maker Larrivée to reissue a discontinued guitar.
A video Hadfield made aboard the International Space Station, in which he sings David Bowie's song Space Oddity, has gone viral, with more than 14 million views – making it the first hit song from space.
In the video, released last week, Hadfield plays a Larrivée Parlor guitar, model P-01, which was discontinued in 2006. But the video has sparked so much interest, the Vancouver-based guitar maker decided last week to reissue the model.
"We had a lot of requests from people to re-release the guitar," Matthew Larrivée, the son of the company's founder, told Business in Vancouver. "We decided two days after the fact to release the guitar and we have since presold over $100,000 worth of those guitars."
At $1,200, the P-01 is an entry-level Larrivée.
Larrivée was founded by Jean Larrivée in 1967 in Toronto. He relocated the company to Victoria in 1977, then to Vancouver in 1983. Larrivée has guitar manufacturing shops in both Vancouver and in California.
The reissued P-01 ISS commemorative edition will be made exclusively in the Vancouver shop.
