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The '60s Strat (right) alongside its '50s Strat and Tele siblings

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Sounds

If the look and feel is old and worn, the sound is a little less specific, which might have vintage guitar forums buzzing but for the majority of players the pickup choice and the overall sounds are eminently useable.

Compared to its '50s sibling, the fuller neck and rosewood 'board yield a slightly fuller mid-range, making things a little more 'rock' if you like, but not at the expense of that almost acoustic-like high-end detail and tremendous explosive attack.

The guitar is hum-cancelling in the combined pickup position but it is wired, control-wise, as the originals without a tone control for the bridge pickup. It's not a deal breaker and really depends on your style, but feeding the bridge pickup to the second tone control is a simple DIY mod.

To be honest, we're in a quandary. These are such good guitars, that really do capture such a vintage feel and tone, that your main dilemma is going to be deciding which version to buy!

That 'which-to-buy' quandary is, of course, balanced by the price: you could buy the '50s and '60s Strats and the '50s Telecaster of these for the price of one Custom Shop Relic. And while the latter, depending on model, might be more vintage-accurate with more subtle ageing, higher spec wood and hardware and USA-made pickups, to be honest Fender might really have shot itself in the foot here.

Not all of us can justify the necessary £2k plus on a Relic, however much we want one, but aside from the most professional of situations we feel these Road Worns are going to be the answer for most of us mortals struggling through the credit crunch.

And don't forget, Teles and Strats are the easiest guitars in the world to mod: you could easily swap hardware or pickups if you want to be more vintage specific or if you feel those Costalot 'boutique' pickups are really worth it.

But our advice would be to live with what you have here, at least for a while. Yes, we've played Strats that are lighter/ heavier, have bigger/slimmer necks, are darker/brighter and so on but Fender has achieved a very balanced tonality here that few players should object to. In short, these are genuinely very, very good guitars.