FENDER VINTERA ROAD WORN ’50S TELECASTER & ’60S STRATOCASTER
Forget Trump, Brexit and COVID-19. A quarter of a century on from Winter NAMM 1995, when Fender first introduced Relic guitars to the world, factory ageing is still the topic most likely to set guitar forums and social media ablaze.
Although Relics have been both a massive success story for Fender and enormously influential throughout the wider industry – everything from effects pedals to capos can now be purchased with a distressed finish – there’s no doubt that a vocal minority in the guitar community prefers its wear and tear to be the result of years of hard gigging. That’s all well and good but what if you don’t have the funds for a vintage instrument or the inclination to wait several decades for the boxfresh nitro finish on your new guitar to take on a vintage patina?
Fender’s original Road Worn series arrived in 2009, making the played-in look and feel of an old Strat or Tele much more accessible to the masses by taking the ageing know-how of the Custom Shop and applying it to production-line guitars made in the company’s Ensenada factory in Baja California,
