‘How have we never seen it?’: Filmmakers searching for missing guitar from ‘Back to the Future’

A Winnipeg man is among people helping search for the missing guitar Michael J. Fox played in “Back to the Future”

Todd Harapiak will never forget the first time he saw “Back to the Future”.

The former Manitoban was a teenager in 1985 when the movie was first released. He drove from his home in Cowan—about five hours north of Winnipeg—to sit in the Garrick Theatre and watch Marty McFly travel back in time to 1955 and try to save his parents’ relationship to ensure he still exists in the future.

“It was such a pivotal moment in our lives,” Harapiak said in a recent interview, noting he watched the movie over and over when it was eventually released on home video. “The movie really spoke to me.”

Harapiak now lives in Los Angeles, where he works for Gibson Guitars as its media director.

Superfans will remember it was a Gibson guitar—specifically an ES-345—that Michael J. Fox used to play “Johnny B. Goode” at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, prompting Marvin Berry to call his cousin Chuck to listen to “that new sound you’re looking for.”

Gibson’s director of brand experience Mark Agnesi believes the scene spurred many to pick up the instrument themselves.

“(Michael J. Fox) wasn’t in a band and didn’t have a hit record, so he kind of gets passed over on the lists of influential guitar players, but he literally inspired an entire generation to play the guitar,” he said.

Despite being used in the memorable scene, the guitar itself has been missing in action for decades, and nobody knows where it is.

Harapiak, Agnesi and filmmaker Doc Crotzer have spent the past six years trying to find it. The search is the subject of a documentary called “Lost to the Future,” which includes interviews with cast members to mark the 40th anniversary of “Back to the Future.”

Their search would probably be easier if they had access to a time-travelling DeLorean.

“We could go back and grab the guitar and put it somewhere for safekeeping,” Crotzer said.

‘This guitar has never surfaced’

Here’s what is known about the guitar.

It was a cherry red Gibson ES-345, believed to be from 1960 or 1961. It was rented from Norman’s Rare Guitars in Tarzana, Cali. in 1985 for the filming of “Back to The Future.” The guitar was returned to the store after filming, but may have been sold at some point. But to whom is unknown.

“We’re not in the era of digital receipts; we’re not in the era of things being tracked the way they inherently are now,” Crotzer said.

Coincidentally, Agnesi was the general manager of Norman’s Rare Guitars from 2009 to 2019 and remembers spending hours looking for the guitar, to no avail.

“All I know is there’s been massive guitar displays at the Metropolitan Museum, Hard Rock Cafes, Rock and Roll Hall of Fames - all of these different things, and this guitar has never surfaced,” he said. “It’s one of the most important guitars ever, definitely the most important guitar of our generation. How have we never seen it?”

The guitar does have one distinctive feature that sets it apart from other similar guitars. Agnesi said the ES-345 typically has split parallelogram inlays—small blocks of wood between all the fret marks. The 12th fret on the guitar in the movie doesn’t have a split inlay.

Having exhausted all options, the group has created a website to get the word out on their plans for the movie and to get tips from people around the world about where the guitar might be. They received hundreds in the first week and will begin sifting through them to find their next lead.

The search is a labour of love from three people with a shared passion for the classic film.

“As hard as it is when you’re talking about trying to find a needle in a haystack that’s the size of the globe, we’ve been so fortunate to have these moments where we all kind of look around at each other, saying to each other, ‘Can you believe we’re doing this?’” Crotzer said.

“It’s been really special in that way, because even though we each experienced “Back to the Future” individually as kids, there is this like common bond and this common experience of what the movie did for us that the three of us feel together.”

Anyone with tips can reach out to the group on the “Lost to the Future” website.