The Fender Custom Shop has teamed up with John Frusciante to create a stunning replica of the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist’s battle-scarred and much loved 1962 Stratocaster, recreating every “ding and dent” of the original on its 3-Color Sunburst finish.
Designed and put together by Master Builder Paul Weller, this limited edition signature guitar is the Custom Shop showing off, honouring one of Fender’s most high-profile Strat icons on the model’s 70th anniversary.
There are several headline items here, not least that finish. No matter where you stand on the business of relic’d guitars, the job that has been done on this one is uncanny; it would be fascinating to see if Frusciante or his bandmates could tell the difference. Weller says a “ton of work” went into this high-end replica.
“Frusciantes’ Strat is right up there with the most iconic Fenders of all time,” he says. “Being able to work on his first-ever signature model was a true privilege. Recreating this instrument’s many beautiful imperfections was no easy feat, but behind every ding and dent is a story and it’s our job to make sure that this guitar’s narrative is told in full, stunning detail.”
The Strat features a two-piece alder body that will grab all the focus when it comes to the pictures but we would bet good money that it will be the neck that will live long in any guitarist’s mind who is lucky enough to play this. Setting aside Frusciante’s wear and tear, this is first and foremost a 2024 replica of a 1962 Strat, which in many Strat fancier’s opinion was the model’s golden year.
As such, the neck has fashioned from rift-sawn maple and shaped into an early ‘60s style Oval “C” shape. This is topped with a 7.25” radius slab-style fingerboard of AAA rosewood fingerboard, inlaid with white dots and featuring 21 narrow-tall frets. Waller says it is a delight.
“The whole team is tremendously proud of how this thing plays,” he says. “The neck has that singular worn in quality that is usually only attainable with a pre-owned vintage guitar and the Abby hand-wound pickups really speak to Frusciante’s expressive, crystalline tone.”
The electric guitar pickups Waller speaks of are a ‘60s Strat single-coil set that has been hand-wound by the “Queen of Tone” Abigail Ybarra, who first started working at Fender in 1956. According to this 2017 interview with She Shreds, Ybarra retired in 2013. It’s hard to see how you could get a more vintage-accurate ‘60s pickup than getting the guru who made them the first time around to make them.
This trio of single-coils is wired to a five-way switch – so it’s not exactly just as a ’62 Strat would be configured – and there is also an Ilitch Electronics hum-cancelling system in the circuit so that you can go bananas with your pedalboard without the background noise.
Elsewhere, there are vintage-style tuners and synchronized tremolo, a bone nut, a wing string tree with metal spacer. Inside the guitar case you will find a COA. The Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt John Frusciante Stratocaster is priced $20,000.
Hmm... We might just have to wait and see if Fender release a Mexican-built version like they did with Mike McCready’s Strat. For more details, head over to the Fender Custom Shop.
