Eko VoxĪs demand for guitars increased still, Vox were simply unable to keep up, especially for worldwide export. Versions of these guitars were also sold under different brands: Crucianelli, Élite, and Imperial.
Whilst JMI continued to produce solid bodies in the UK, production of two new semi-acoustic guitar models, the Lynx and Challenger, began in Italy.
The next stage in Vox electric acoustic story was via Italian guitar makers Crucianelli. Although a well built guitar, there was no way that this small operation could ever fill the rapidly growing demand for electric acoustics in the massively expanding guitar market of the early-mid 1960s. The first Vox electric acoustic was the hand-built Vox Victor, produced in very small numbers by luthier Vic da Costa. For this reason, construction was outsourced: the majority of Vox hollow body guitars were made in Italy, by Crucianelli and Eko. Vox did not initially have the tooling, or workers with the necessary skills, to create such instruments. But with the rise of semi-acoustic guitars like the Gibson ES-335 there was significant demand for hollow body or semi-hollow guitars. In the beginning of the 1960s, Vox owner, JMI were primarily an electronics company able to build amplifiers and simple solid-body electric guitars.