Went to my local Guitar Center today to check the status on my amp order and got a chance to demo the new Road Worn series. They had the 50's and 60's Strats as well as the Tele's (I did not demo the tele). The 50's have a maple fretboard and 60's have the rosewood board. First off I have to say what a great job they did with the relic work. Looks just as good as my Custom Shop 1960 Relic. Aged plastic and rusted vintage saddles. The necks have wear the back and on the fretboard. The fingering marks are not detailed like the custom shops relics are. The wear is spead out over a general area on the fretboard. Also unlike the custom shop relics which are unique (no two are the same) the mim relics are all pretty much the same. To produce them quickly I'm sure the line workers are given a pattern to follow for the relic job. I would call these medium to heavy relics. The backs have a lot of buckle rash and the front has the arm wear through the finsh and chips and scratches. Overall a nice job. Fit and finish is pretty good as most now know about the south of the border models. The over all feel is good and they feel worn in and are comfortable to play. You wont have to worry about fingerprints or polishing one of these. I demoed 4 mim relics and the were all finished well. I cant say the same about the factory setup. My lord are the setups bad. The bridges are setup way to high and of course the strings are crappy 9's. If you prefer 9's your good to go I guess but you'll still need a setup job. Even with the bad setup the 4 strats I demoed (2 60's and 2 50's) played decent. The tex mex pickups are pretty good. I had played a Jimmy Vaughan strat years ago that came with them and I dont remember them sounding this good. I prefer the 50's v neck but the 60's played fine. As far as the price goes I"m still up in the air about it. If the MIA strats go up in price as has been rumoured it may make the 985.00 + tax a little easier to swallow for some. For those that dont like faux relics or mim fenders you will not be impressed at all at this price point but if you really are in the market for a relic this is a pretty decent strat for a fraction of the custom shop relic price of 3k. Of course you can find used CS relics for around 1800 bucks if you look on ebay. I would be tempted to buy one of these road worn strats if I hadnt spent so much money on gear this past month and I'm about to pull the trigger on high dollar custom shop strat so funds are low.

Pros- Decent pups, keepers for most.
Good relic job, worn in feel
Good quality MIM

Cons- Cookie cutter relic job, they all look the same
Price, it's still a MIM Fender for over a thousand bucks with tax.
Typical lousy factory setup
No hardshell case for a thousand dollar + guitar.

that is quite a good review. and i agree about the case, at least a little hardshell if not a tweed...

_________________
Fender Classic Series '50s Stratocaster, 2-Tone Sunburst
Carlos 207
Dunlop Crybaby
Digitech RP50
One WORKING Pro Junior

Lucy how was the fretjob and body resonance. At £680 the current uk price ($1027) it sounds like not enough guitar for the money to me from what you've written so far.

_________________
No no and no

Thanks for the review- good information.

_________________
Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

Here's some additional info I left out of my review.

Both the 50's and 60's come with a vintage hardware. The switch however is a 5 way and not a 3 way. Fret job is avg. It's not bad but it's not custom shop or even american standard quality. They both come with jumbo frets. Both bodies are Alder and resonate fairly well. They come with a thin nitro finish which may help the resonance and looks good. I agree to a degree that you dont get whole lot for the money but the over all package isnt bad. I rather like this new series of strats, getting past the sticker shock is a different story though.

Thankyou for the addition and the whole review. I dont think i'm going to go out of my way to try one. If one turns up on a shelf of a shop i'm in i'll try it though.

_________________
No no and no

One more thing. I must have been high on crack or something today becuase the road worns are supposed to come with 10's on them and I could have sworn they were 9's.

Nice review but it looks as if Fender is going to have to change there specs info here because one of the first things to catch My eye was they are showing the Road Worn coming with .010-.046 strings. I have not seen one yet but may this weekend. To bad the setups were not good.

_________________
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Does anyone knows if theres also a lefhanded version of those guitars?

Well Fender setups have always been hit or miss. Mostly miss. It was immediatley obvious to me that the bridge on all 4 road worn strats were to high. As for as the strings go they may have been 10's. I've been playing with higher guage strings lately so it could be just me although I should know the difference between 9's and 10's by now. : )

This Guitar Center that I went to had at least 8 road worn guitars come in today and they were all righties. Sorry I dont know the answer to your question.

I checked musicianfriends and they are not listing a left handed version at the moment. I doubt Fender is going to leave the southpaws out though.

Dont knock yourself for maybe not noticing the difference between 9's and 10's. the feeling of strings changes from guitar to guitar. I bulk bought 48 sets of 10's. their on both my strats a lespaul and a tele and feel drasicaly different from guitar to guitar. The string tensions of the 2 strats and the tele all feel completely different to each other.

_________________
No no and no

The first review of this guitar I've seen. Thanks for sharing it with all of us forum members! I've been a hankering for a cheaper tele than a deluxe to add to my collection as I don't own one. Maybe I'll give them a try!

Fhopkins, sounds like you could be better off with a baja tele. Similar quality levels and no extortionate pricetag. I'm very pleased with mine.

_________________
No no and no