Charvel has unveiled the American Neo-Classic series, a range of San Dimas Style 1 hotrods that take the brand’s story back where it started, in California.
These US-made S-styles are offered with the choice of Floyd Rose double-locking vibratos or hardtail bridges, and the spec is suitably premium, with Seymour Duncan electric guitar pickups as standard.
This is a big deal. Sure, these past few years, the Mexican-made Pro-Mod range has been knocking it out the park, ditto the MIJ line. But Charvel production returning to the USA, it’s a spiritual homecoming. This is where the hotrodding began, when Charvel established itself as the name the ‘80s virtuoso set gravitated towards in search of a high-performance take on the Fender Stratocaster.
“Charvel was born in California and so was this guitar,” says Jon Romanowski, VP of Product at Charvel. “The American Neo-Classic San Dimas is a direct line back to where it all started, the shop, the craft, the obsession with making instruments that players actually want to play.
“Building it in Corona feels like coming full circle. The JB/'59 pickup pairing delivers on every level, and the finishes feel as iconic as the guitar itself.”
And that is very much what the San Dimas Style 1 is. It even has the licensed Fender headstock (Fender owns Charvel).
But this is a go-faster Strat, with a quartersawn bolt-on maple neck that is actually listed on the spec sheet as a Speed Neck profile (which, from memory, struck us as an emaciated C shape).
Besides being quartersawn, this neck is reinforced with graphite rods. Charvel has always been about having fun with the electric guitar, pushing its limits, but when you think about it these builds are thoroughly practical.
Little touches such as the rolled fingerboard edges enhance playability, others such as the heel-mounted truss rod adjustment wheel are just, well, useful.
Many of the more high-end specs of the Pro-Mod range are carried over here. We are talking about the aforementioned rolled fingerboard edges, the Luminlay glow-in-the-dark side markers, satin neck finishes, Charvel branded die-cast tuners and whatnot.
But we’ve got stainless steel jumbo frets, a single knurled metal volume knob that’s housing one of those 500K low-friction Bourns pots you find on EVH Gear instruments, which makes it easy (or easier) to roll back the volume for those Eddie Van Halen-style swells.
Charvel has kitted out all of these with a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker at the bridge, a Seymour Duncan ’59 at the neck. Now there’s a tried and tested pickup combo if ever there was one, especially if tone-wise you’re reanimating the spirit of ‘80s hard rock and heavy metal.
And while you don’t have a tone control to worry your head about, there is five-way switching which gives players plenty of in between tones to work with.
You get gold hardware on the hardtail version, chrome with the Floyd. Speaking of which, that’s a Floyd Rose 1000 Series vibrato, which is a little strange – the Jackson American series comes with the 1500 Series, which has the stainless steel screws and the push-in arm (if you’re of a mind to upgrade the unit yourself, these parts are available direct from Floyd Rose).
The Floyd version – aka the SD1 HH FR – is offered in Robin's Egg Blue, Ivory Blitz, Gloss Black and Racing Red and it is priced £2,399/$2,799. The hardtail model is offered in Gloss Black, Racing Red, Velvet Midnight and Ivory Blitz and is priced £2,249/$2,749.
Both models are available now. For more details, head over to Charvel.
To see them in action, check out Dweezil Zappa's demo video above. He's shredding in a skatepark.
