If early 60s Stratocasters are your thing but you don't want to take out a second mortgage on the house to get one? This is your guitar.

Why We Love This

This heavy relic '61 Custom Shop Strat finds Fender tipping their hat to Fender's practice of shooting custom colors over sunburst in the 60s. Since all the bodies were already finished in sunburst, Leo thought it most efficient to simply shoot the ordered color over those bodies. Over time as the guitar began to age, you'd start to see some of the original sunburst finish poking through, creating a really cool and unique "combination" finish.

We all know looks are only skin deep, so how is the guitar itself? Killer. Fender's 60s oval C neck carve (.79-.93") nails the feel of a real early 60s Fender. Combined with 6100/jumbo frets, the playability is effortless. This is one of our favorite neck shapes not only because it's really close to a vintage Strat from this era, but also because it's great for both lead work and chord work. Trickier chord voicings are easier to grab on a neck like this, but you don't sacrifice the ability to dig in and get under the string for bending.

Another standout feature of this guitar are the Master Design "Bone Tone" pickups. Designed to have greater headroom and clarity when overdriven, these pickups deliver inspiring, open, and chimey Strat tones in all positions and true to form, sound killer when overdriven (a little more Tele-like in this context).