After reading an interview with John Suhr, I found myself asking the question "Will there ever be another guitar that affects the music world as profoundly as the Stratocaster, and is it even possible at this point?".

Feature by feature, does anyone think there's a remote chance that we'll ever see a guitar that replaces the strat in terms of popularity?

Hi AnthonyStauffer: I guess the Pacifica 112 and the Epi Les Paul must be somewhere next in line by sales numbers.

They don't really feel like contenders, do they?

From a different part of the market, I have found Parker Flys very interesting to play and I've kinda got used to the look. I haven't bought one though...

Cheers - C

Hey Hey Anthony-

I can't say enough about your website...Thank you !

As to your post.... I really dont think there will be. G&L started by George Fullerton and Leo Fender tried to make the "New and Approved" Strat type guitar and it really hasn't taken anything away from the original Fender market. Don't get me wrong... They are fine guitars but there is something about the original Fender Stratocaster...flaws and all that give it that authentic sound.

Best of luck to you and your family...

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2000 MIM Stratocaster, Midnight Wine W/Texas Specials
2000 Fender Hot Rod Deluxe
1969 Fender Vibro Champ

The Parker Fly is a good example of what I'm referring too. A guitar that doesn't resemble or mimic a strat. Except that no one I know owns one

So I guess my real thought is if any guitar will ever beat the Strat at it's own game, without borrowing heavily from it for design and sound. So it would have to be different and better all at the same time, but better at the same things.

No, there won't be....




....until Fender designs a new guitar!

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I don't think so. Strats are classic, yet original.

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Hi again Anthony: to get a bit more serious about it, I once sat down to try to design a six-on-a-side headstock that would be so radical and new it would make Parker's Fly look old and conservative.

I went through (literally) close to a hundred designs on paper, starting from first principles and letting function guide form. Gradually I honed away at it and finally came up with a shape I found practical and attractive. It looks fairly similar to the headstock on Peavey's Omniac amongst others, except that it's angled back at two degrees.

Hardly revolutionary, and barely a step away from what Leo and his team came up with over 50 years ago.

In other words, I just don't think there is a quantum leap waiting to be done in guitar design. Even the Parker Fly is just a heavily tweaked, funked up version of the Strat. It's genes are obvious to the eye. And they are swimming in a much more diverse ocean than Fender and Gibson were in the '50s. A guitar would be hard pressed to establish itself with such dominance even if it was genuinely hugely different.

We're at a different stage in guitar evolution now.

Cheers - C

I don't imagine there will be. Guitar players tend to be traditionalists when it comes to their gear. Think about it: the most highly coveted guitars are generally vintage models 40-50 years old. The most popular amplifiers are based on technology developed many decades ago. Long after vacuum tubes became obsolete in radios, computers and TVs, they are still commonplace -- and, in fact, preferred -- in guitar amps.

Guitar makers haven't had much luck introducing new guitar designs since the 50s. We had the Steinberger headless guitar back in the 80s -- those were popular for a while but then seem to all but disappear. Then there's the Parker Fly -- I had a guitar teacher a few years back who owned one and loved it -- but I think they're a little too expensive for most people's tastes.

Also, just how much more could you really improve the design of an electric guitar. Can you make a body type more comfortable than that of a Strat? Can you make a better sounding instrument than a Strat or a Les Paul? You can tinker with and tweak things to a certain degree, but I think most electric guitarists will be playing Strats, Teles and Les Pauls (along with their imitators) for a long time to come.

It just continues to amaze me that someone could so early in the game come up with a design that captures the hearts and minds of guitar players for half a century. So many things from decades ago end up looking dated, old fashioned, etc... but somehow the strat design has eluded the fate of so many other things that got ditched along the way....

Yes, there is another Stratocaster...in MY future

But I really cant see anyone "one upping" the Strat, at least for me anyway.

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I think there will be, nothing is ethernal ......history shows that new stuff always emerges and replaces the one at the top

There will certainly be other guitars as good as or better than the Strat (e.g. PRS), but probably never anything more iconic. You can't change history... there are great guitars around, but the model T Ford or VW Beetle will always have there own place in history - it's the same with the Strat, Tele and Les Paul.

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Well IMO i would have to say no. The Strat really got it's start in a era of Rock that spawned some of our guitar greats. The strat is and always will be identfied with Rock n Roll and thoes guitarest that made it what it is today. A LEGOND.

You cant better perfection.

This demi-historian thinks probably not.

Perhaps the Stratocaster will be known in 200+ years as the Guarneri-Stradivari of electric guitars; not absolutely necessarily the "best," but certainly the most famous, the metaphorical icon.