MusicRadar

The Strat has mercifully been kept fairly lightweight.

1 of 5 » View in gallery

• Review

We first looked at Fender's Mexican-made Road Worn Series back in early 2009. Like all pre-aged new guitars they were met with both joyful squeals and derisive jeers, depending entirely on whether you think beating up a brand-new guitar is either stupid or clever - as a man named St Hubbins once observed, it's such a fine line.

In fact, it's neither. It's Fender continuing what it does best, and that's offering its most popular guitars in every possible price and spec format, hence our latest example.

"There's no doubt the lack of finish on the fingerboard keeps this guitar from being brittle-bright."

The three-single-coil Stratocaster should be familiar to all but the newest of intergalactic visitors, given this design's mainstream prevalence since the mid-1950s.

It begins with a two-piece alder body that's deeply and lovingly contoured; not blocky like certain later guitars can be.

When it comes to see-though finishes, Fender needs to be a little more careful with its wood selection from an aesthetic point of view, so you'll pay an extra £36 over the solid colour option (Olympic white is what's offered).

On this example there's a lot of black into the upper horn, which gives a more '70s rather than '50s vibe, exacerbated of course by the convincingly pre- worn black plastics.

The guitar remains mercifully light at 3.3kg. We criticised previous Road Worns for being on the heavy side, so if they're all like this, hooray.

The Road Worn finish is the major talking point, a thin, almost-matte nitrocellulose coat that's been mechanically aged to simulate a few years' heavy use.

It's not convincing in a vintage guitar sense, but Fender is the first to point out that nobody is trying to fool you that these are old guitars; they just ape the feel of well-played instruments and, yes, look a bit vintage from afar.

The lightly worn satin finish of the neck is very similar to the existing Road Worns; inviting, quick under the palm and so much more playable than new nitrocellulose.

The medium jumbo frets and a 241mm (9.5-inch) radius however, gives you the option of a lower action, enabling easier string bending with less fret buzz and choking.

The difference isn't night-and-day perceptible from a 184mm (7.25-inch) radius and skinny frets (Road Worns have bigger-than-vintage Dunlop 6105s it should be noted), but play for a few minutes and you'll soon get the idea. We'd take this over a vintage-correct fingerboard every day of the week.

And as is common for modern-day Fenders - particularly if you buy from a good dealer - set-up, playability, and all that essential 'it-feels-great' stuff is of a high standard.