If you're looking for an exceptional Strat but don't want to get into boutique or vintage just yet? This is your guitar.

Though we sit on this side of your computer / phone screen, surrounded by incredible instruments....we have to admit, when shopping for a great Fender Custom Shop guitar, it can be pretty daunting, right? There are a lot of them to choose from, and aside from what pickups are installed or how relic'd it is (or isn't), it can be next to impossible to know if the one you're looking at is "a good one".

We'll try to make this one easy - from all of the boutique, vintage, and FCS instruments we get our hands on as our benchmark - this Charcoal Frost Metallic '66 Strat is a good one. Scratch that - a damned good one. It rivals many of the small-shop, boutique guitars we carry, truthfully.

The build quality is fantastic - specifically, the '66 Oval C neck carve (it actually reminds us a lot of the Lentz guitars we carry). Great taper, chunky but not overly so, excellent fretwork that yields a slick, fast, easy playing feel.

Plugged in, the hand-wound '66 Custom Shop pickups sounded incredible into a Carr Rambler. Chimey, bright, great touch sensitivity...it's what we want a great Strat to sound like. The bridge pickup is wired to the 2nd tone control so you can be as bright or rolled-off as you want...