Marty McFly grabbed a guitar in Back to the Future and rocked out with the band at a 1950s high school dance, helping him narrowly avoid blinking out of existence before time-traveling back to the 1980s.

The guitar, in real life, wasn’t as lucky.

Film-makers went looking for the instrument while making the movie’s 1989 sequel, but even now it’s nowhere to be found. Four decades after the blockbuster film debuted, the guitar’s creator has launched a search for the cherry red Gibson ES-345.

Gibson, which is based in Nashville, is asking the public for help tracking it down as the movie turns 40 and as the company produces a new documentary about the search and the film, Lost to the Future.

In a video by Gibson, with the movie’s theme song playing in the background, Back to the Future stars such as Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and Harry Waters Jr make a cinematic plea.

There’s also a surprise appearance by Huey Lewis, whose band Huey Lewis and the News performed the soundtrack’s headliner song, The Power of Love.

Lloyd, in the cadence of Doc Brown, says in the video that the guitar has been “lost to the future”.

“It’s somewhere lost in the space-time continuum,” says Fox, who played McFly. “Or it’s in some Teamster’s garage.”

In the film, McFly steps in for an injured band member at the 1955 school dance with the theme Enchantment under the Sea, playing the guitar as students slow dance to Earth Angel. He then leads Marvin Berry and the Starlighters in a rendition of Johnny B Goode, calling it an oldie where he comes from even though the 1958 song doesn’t exist yet for his audience.

Fox said he wanted McFly to riff through his favorite guitarists’ signature styles – Jimi Hendrix behind the head, Pete Townshend’s windmill and the Eddie Van Halen hammer.

After digging and dancing to Johnny B Goode, the students at the dance fall into an awkward silence as McFly’s riffs turn increasingly wild.

“I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet,” McFly says. “But your kids are gonna love it.”