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The J5’s body is made from a weighty piece of ash

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There's a twin singlecoil, Bigsby vibrato toting option of the Custom Shop J5 available too, but Fender has played it safe by sticking with the rocker-friendly humbucker version for their Mexican axe.

Before we start pointing out the cool little details that set this guitar apart from the rest of the Telecaster crowd, let's take a look at the basics.

Overview

Okay, body first. Underneath that glorious black paint, with its white body binding on the top edge, is a generous slab of ash.

Now, if we've taught you anything about Telecasters, it's that ash is the Tele lover's wood of choice. The other Fender wood of choice, alder, does a good job but most connoisseurs of all things Telecaster agree that ash is, without a doubt, the tonal business.

The neck is classic Fender. Fashioned from hardwearing maple and topped with a good-looking rosewood fingerboard it has a vintage feel thanks to its '60s-style 'C' profile.

String bending is aided by some well-finished medium jumbo frets – 22 of the blighters. And just so you know where you are on the fingerboard, Fender has fitted large cream-coloured plastic position markers designed to simulate vintage clay dots.

The neck is joined to the body with four screws, with the usual chrome neck plate to protect the body. All pretty straightforward, but John 5 specified some cheeky little details on his Custom Shop signature guitars and we're pleased to see them on our Mexican J5.

The most obvious deviation from the Fender Tele blueprint is that oversized headstock. Originally spotted on Fender's rare XII 12-string Tele, it adds a touch of visual flair to this six-string axe. The simple silver Fender and Telecaster logos look pretty, too.

There's actually a practical reason for Mr 5's choice of headstock. There's a lot of space between the guitar's top nut and the machineheads, which allows John the freedom to nail some extreme behind the nut string bends.

This is a technique used by Tele players - most famously Jerry Donahue of The Hellecasters - to simulate a pedal steel guitar. Remember, John 5 is a country guitarist as well as a shredder.

Before we move onto the body, we were pleased to find a set of Fender/Schaller Deluxe staggered machineheads fitted to the headstock. The machinehead shafts (the part the strings wrap around) are varied in height.

The further away from the top nut they are, the lower they get. This gives the required string angle to stop the strings popping out of the top nut. Plus, it means that Fender haven't had to fit string trees - or retainers - which can cause tuning problems.

While the body is the classic Telecaster shape, there are a few cosmetic details that make it a bit special. If you're a true Tele nerd you'll notice that the body doesn't have the flattened body contour at the input plate, where your leads goes in.

Luckily, the other special features are dead easy to spot. All that chrome should be a giveaway. Like Johnny's Custom Shop doozies, this guitar has a veritable Hall of Mirrors of shiny bits. The scratchplate is a sleek slice of chrome-plated brass that matches the control plate and six-saddle bridge.