A few years back AJ shared his very cool “Gold Top” jag-stang project with us which we featured on the blog. Heres the link.
He’s sent in some pics of his restored and modified 1975 Fender Mustang to share with us as well. And it is also very cool! His description and photos are below. Enjoy!
It’s a restored 1975, with some obvious modifications (something the purists might not dig…but whatever). The pickups are full-size single coil filtertrons which sound sensational. The tuners are Planet Waves locking. I opted to lose the stock switches and installed a 3-way toggle switch where the jack hole usually is. I moved the jack hole to the side of the body (as seen in the photo…a VERY scary drilling job…but thankfully it turned out quite well). Also, the stock nut was replaced with a brass nut.
This was my first electric guitar that I bought new in 1975 from Charles Music Store in Glendale, California, so there’s a lot of personal sentimental value. It was originally dark brown in color. Plays great and sounds very unique with the ‘trons. Definitely a strong, edgy surf tone. Gotta love it!
Hi everyone! The reviews from people with actual hands on the new Pawn Shop Fender Mustang are few and far between. If you have one or have tried one out in your local shop we encourage you to share your opinions in the official review thread located here:
We often like to feature content from the forums on the blog. Forum member HNB has been working on some Mustang modifications and recently finished them up.
Mods: Hard tail with 6mm bolts and washers, metal dome knobs, SD JB trembucker, custom pickguardian.com parchment pickguard, and ’85 MIJ strat bridge pickup in the neck.
Another new Mustang variant is now available from Fender! It’s being labeled as the Pawn Shop Mustang Special with the tagline “guitars that never were but should have been.”
Available in Lake Placid Blue and Candy Apple Red the MSRP for these is $999.99 which comes to a list price around $799.99. Some of the features that jump out are the 9.5″ radius neck, hard tail stratocaster bridge and additional pickup switching options.
Here’s the quote from the Fender series site about the guitar.
The Pawn Shop Mustang Special has a modified offset Mustang® body, ’60s “C”-shaped 24” short-scale maple neck, and dual Fender Enforcer™ humbucking pickups with ’70s-style covers and unique switching. Other features include a rosewood fretboard with modern 9.5” radius and medium jumbo frets, pickup toggle switch, three-way coil selector slide switch for each humbucking pickup (enabling 18 different tonal options), mint green pickguard, ’70s-style hard-tail Stratocaster® bridge, vintage-style tuners and strap buttons, and deluxe gig bag.
Fender recently put up a really good article on the history of the Fender Mustang. The article is definitely worth a read. [The Fender Mustang Guitar @ Fender.com]
Small excerpt from the article below:
Fender was keenly aware in the mid-1950s that there was much to be gained by offering “student” instruments for retailers who offered in-store music instruction. The thinking went that if beginners with beginner guitars stuck with it, dealers who offered lessons were well placed to launch them to the next level by selling them full-size Fender Telecaster® and Stratocaster® guitars. Hence the arrival in 1956 of Fender’s first two student guitars, the single-pickup Musicmaster® and the two-pickup Duo-Sonic™. Both were short-scale guitars (22.5” compared to 25.5” for the Telecaster and Stratocaster) at the low end of the price list ($119.50 and $149.50 respectively). Fender revamped its student guitar line in 1964 by offering both guitars in both short and medium (24”) scales and by introducing an entirely new guitar that August, the Mustang.
Via multiple gaming news sites comes news of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5. (ign and evil avatar) The tracks in the game are Smells Like Teen Spirit and Lithium.
Looks like they have Cobain playing the humbuck-ified Fender Mustang in the game. See the photo and video below for a look at the virtual guitar and the lithium track as played in game.
I wanted to use this post to highlight a great thread in our forums. It is a post in the Fender Mustang section titled “Pics of Everyones fender mustangs“. It was started back in summer of 2008 and has over 5500 views at the time of this posting.
Below is a selection of photos from that forum post. If you have a Fender Mustang and haven’t jumped in on sharing your photos yet we encourage you to do so!
We’ve kept a backup copy of the brillant Mr Maxima’s Fender Mustang Story web site at jag-stang.com for many years since it disappeared. We were recently contacted by Mr Maxima that he has revived the web site.
