If I remember correctly, I used to have the Guitar Player gear guide every year from 1995-1999, and every last one of those listed the Japanese Mustangs as coming in Sonic Blue, Vintage White, and Fiesta Red. The specifications may have changed since then, Fender Japan was never stuck on one way to make their guitars. I still have yet to see what colors Fender offered on their Mustangs prior to 1995 though, but I reckon it was not much different.
Every 69' Mustang I've seen in this thread so far qualifies as Fiesta red, my Musicmaster was Dakota Red, and I've seen Fiesta red guitars before in person - Dakota Red vs Fiesta, Dakota is more of a pure red whereas Fiesta is more of a quasi-pastel orangy red color.Competition red is mostly just Candy Apple Red Overcoat to Vintage White.
I would not be surprised if on Vintage Examples Fender used both red colors either to use up extra paint (likely) or to follow color trends of the time (darker shades were more preferred towards the end of the 60's through the 70's), that might be why they just specified just Red. Maybe in 64' Fender had a bunch of unsold unused Dakota Red paint to use up, so they decided to use it on Mustangs, Musicmasters, and Duo-Sonics. Then went to Fiesta when the bright colored surf guitar era was over to use that color up, and restocked on dakota to have a darker brickish red to follow the times. This could have resulted in a large amount of mix and matched red student models.
Another possibility is that Fender Japan got their source instrument to copy the mustang from a faded Dakota Red Mustang, and intiially thought it was Fiesta red bone stock, and later found out Fender only ever made them in Dakota red.
Just some thoughts on the finishing bit. I dunno why a guitar's finish matters, I tend to chip a lot of it off of mine anyway. I don't think Kurt thought about it a lot too, he probably just picked colors he liked when given the option, but did not care much otherwise.
