This Fender Custom Shop Marauder could be the coolest guitar comeback of 2020

First the bad news, the Fender Marauder in the video above isn't yet in production beyond a one-off Custom Shop artist model. The good news – it's a stunning guitar. And it could hopefully make a full return. 

Despite a short-lived Modern Player edition at the start of the decade, the Marauder remains an enigma in the Fender catalogue. Not to be confused with the Gibson guitar of the same name from the mid 1970s.

The first episode in Fender’s new Dream Factory video series spotlighted the Stratocaster 1 but the follow-up in the series casts a spotlight on the offset from the mid '60s that never actually made it to the full production line.

(Image credit: Fender)

Now the company has unveiled the second installment in the series, which focuses on the Marauder, an experimental offset design from the '60s that never made it into production, but has now been resurrected by Master Builder Carlos Lopez.

“I don’t think people were ready for it back in the Sixties,” says Fender Master Builder Carlos Lopez, who always had the ambition to bring the Marauder back from the shadows of guitar history. “I think it was too odd, there was too much going on. I think people are finally ready for it.”

We certainly are. Matthew Logan Vasquez of the band Delta Spirit Is the lucky recipient of the Cadillac Green prototype model in the video – and it features onboard delay.

Rob Laing
Guitars Editor, MusicRadar

I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.