Taylor Legacy 514ce Grand Auditorium Acoustic-Electric Guitar, Western Red Cedar/Mahogany, Natural

After a full year of celebration, Taylor Guitars closes out their 2024 and fiftieth anniversary as a company with their Legacy Collection – among it, the Taylor Legacy 514ce. This model, releasing exclusively through the Taylor Guitars Legacy Collection, represents the culmination of 2024's festivities for Taylor in their fiftieth year as a company. Unique tonewood combinations and a reimagined essence make this 500 Series model one to write home about and celebrate.

The Taylor Legacy 514ce came together with an eye toward Taylor's legacy as a guitar maker. For this model, Bob Taylor personally looked back into the company's history to make a model that balances Taylor standards old and new. While not a strict recreation of any legacy Taylors from decades past, these Legacy Collection models represent a culmination of fifty years of experimentation, refinement, and musicality.

As a Taylor model, the 514ce starts out with a single-cutaway Grand Auditorium body shape. The Grand Auditorium, itself celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year, still acts as a standby model for Taylor and the innovation they champion. This Grand Auditorium body is constructed from a western red cedar top. Touch-sensitive and warm, this pick of cedar plays with the response that fingerpickers and light strummers crave. From here, this red cedar is braced with a Taylor X-Bracing brace pattern that was specially designed for this collection to summon the sounds of '90s and '00s Taylors. The 514ce is completed with mahogany back and sides to paint the full tonal picture.

There's a good number of specifications designed into the 514ce to accommodate playability and its visual style. For one, a mahogany neck lands on this model paired with a West African Crelicam ebony fingerboard to connect with players in their fretting hand. West African Crelicam ebony, a relatively newer addition to the Taylor lineage, compounds on this guitar to represent the brand's devotion to environmental conservation and the responsible sourcing of materials. These two features match with an onboard L.R. Baggs Element VTC electronics system that easily translates the sweet acoustic sounds of the 514ce to the stage.

Visually, this 514ce comes together with a number of fine appointments to make it stand out. Among these appointments, a green abalone three-ring rosette, a gloss body finish and satin neck finish, a faux tortoiseshell pickguard and Mother-of-Pearl small diamond fingerboard inlays. This Legacy Collection Taylor features a specially-designed "Legacy" label inside its body and travels with a Taylor Deluxe Hardshell case for security and safety.

There's really little to better encapsulate fifty years of great guitar making than – what else – a great guitar. Take up this Legacy Collection model and join in on the celebration.