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The Durango name has been found on a variety of disparate Blade guitars over the years. Not least of these is the original Durango Deluxe DD-4.

Now see the Blade Durango Deluxe DD-4 in action

That guitar was built in conjunction with Eggle Guitars and, although a double-cut, it resembled a cross between and Music Man Axis, Telecaster Thinline and an Eggle New York.

"It demonstrates a superbly skinny sixties-style C-shape that's been well finished."

"It was one of those, 'designed on a napkin' things," Blade main man Gary Levinson told us at the time. "I got back to the workshop, started playing around with it, came up with the modified Thinline-type of pickguard, and the Durango was born."

Subsequent incarnations such as the Durango T Classic and T were single-cut designs, with either an extra central single-coil or a pair of P-90-style pickups on board. More fundamentally, the guitars had a Fender scale length of 648mm (25.5-inches).

The Durango didn't evolve into something akin to what we have here until the mid-2000s, with the introduction of the Durango Deluxe DD-2 and DD-1.

Both leant more enthusiastically towards the Gibson school, not only due to the reduced 629mm (24.75-inch) scale length, but also the dual full-sized humbuckers.

So what of this new model? "The Durango DD-3 and DD-4 have thinner bodies [than a Les Paul], giving a distinct tone that lies 'between' a Les Paul and an SG-type guitar," says Blade's Christian Hatstatt. "They're made with the rock player in mind - the DD-4 has softer pickups and the VSC-3 [active circuit], which adds versatility."