RS Guitars were made by Steve Turpin in Arizona and were replicas of Brian May's Red Special guitar. Turpin started making RS guitars in the late 1990s when there were no Red Specials in production (the Guild Brian May series having been discontinued in 1995). Turpin originally intended to just make a guitar for himself, but as things progressed he found there were many others interested in the same sort of guitar. RS never had any investors or financial partners, it started with one guitar and grew from there, but it was always a very small operation. One of Turpin's goals early on was to meet Brian May, and hopefully work out some sort of endorsement or licensing deal on the guitars, but there were so many production and supplier issues in the early days, that even though he did have discussions with Brian's management, things unfortunately never materialized. On meeting Brian May some years later to present him with an RS guitar, Turpin was taken aback at Brian's unhappiness with him selling unoffical guitars based on his and his dad's design. After over 10 years making the RS instruments Turpin decided to wind down the operation.

Source: RS Guitars website (13 May 2020)