I always saw the cyclone as one of the four guitars Fender made that more or less didn't have a home in a particular genre, but were too close ot Alternative territory for the old brown coat blues elitist geezers to handle. The other three were the tornado, Super-Sonic, and to a lesser extent, Jagmaster.
I always saw the ideas behind those four guitars as this......
Cyclone - a fault-fixed version of the Jag-Stang
Tornado - sort of a Fender version of the Les Paul
Jagmaster - For all the Gavin Rossdale and Kurt Cobain fans
Super-Sonic - For all the Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana fans (notice it has a slight Mosrite-ish vibe to it)
The problems I see with the cyclone was the fact that it had a strat bridge, that's a REAL turn-off to the alternative crowd, the more stratty pickguard, and the thinner headstock. I think if they had made it more like an upscaled 60's duo-sonic, it could have done better from a technical standpoint. I'm not even going into the marketing, because I could write a BOOK on it most likely.
I have played a Squier Cyclone, and had I been employed at the time, I would have bought it. It's a good sounding guitar, very balanced tone. I think my only complaint was that it needed a good setup.
