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Custom '69 pickups are a little hotter than your average vintage-voiced Strat units

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Although Fender's Custom Shop produces some of the most desirable guitars available, and even though it would seem that the designs are only limited by imagination, it's often the beautiful recreations of specific guitars from the fifties and sixties that attract the highest levels of interest and acclaim.

The Custom Shop employs a small number of masterbuilders to apply their stratospheric skills to not only a selection of limited run guitars, but continuing output of Tribute models and custom-ordered one-offs.

Stock and Custom Teambuilt guitars are pretty special in their own right, but to run your hands over a Masterbuilt guitar is an almost religious experience, and the idea behind the new range of Classic Player Strats is to try and bring some of this magic to the hugely popular mid-price Classic Series.

Behind the scenes

The Classic Player guitars benefit from having been overseen by no less than two masterbuilders: Dennis Galuszka, who designed the '50s Strat, and Greg Fessler, responsible for the '60s model reviewed here. We spoke to Justin Norvell, Fender's marketing manager for electric guitars and basses, to begin the story:

"Around the time I became the Fender marketing manager, senior masterbuilder Chris Fleming had been helping out with some general processes at our Ensenada factory, and was amazed at how impressive that facility had become, how knowledgeable the staff were, and what they were capable of.

"He ended up designing a guitar that he brought to me as a possible 'Factory Special Run' and from that spark we decided a small special run would be short shrift for such a great concept, and that it should be fleshed out into an actual line of instruments.

"When you buy a Custom Shop instrument, you are getting two things: the 'head' - the builder's expertise and knowledge, and the 'hands' - the actual building," he explains. "With these Classic Player instruments, you are getting the 'head', but it didn't stop there: this wasn't just a list of ingredients and components that was facelessly furnished to the factory to be built.

"The masterbuilders went down there and showed the people who would be building these instruments how to do things their way: finishing the custom shaped necks, softening some of the blends, and so on. It was a true collaboration from start to finish."

Although the question of exactly what the Custom Shop team brought to Ensenada has to be asked, Chris Fleming is understandably reticent in spilling too many beans: "I interfaced with the Mexico team to develop a 'thin skin' polyester finish," he says, "as well as working with the production crew to refine sanding of the body contours as well as transitions on the neck and fingerboard edges. We worked on this project for approximately a year from conception to the first production run."