The Fender® American Vintage II series presents remarkably accurate recreations of the revolutionary designs that altered the course of musical history. Built with period-accurate bodies, necks and hardware, premium finishes and meticulously voiced, year-specific pickups, each instrument captures the essence of authentic Fender craftsmanship and tone.
Relive the sound and spirit of 1965 with the American Vintage II 1965 Stratocaster. In the middle of one of music’s most electrifying decades, the 1965 Stratocaster was an instrument on its way to becoming rock’s greatest electric guitar. This example of a Stratocaster from a transition year features a 1965 “C”-shaped maple neck with a 7.25” radius, a round-laminated rosewood fingerboard and larger pearl dot inlays. It also includes an 11-hole three-ply white pickguard, the distinctive transition logo with larger lettering and a set of Pure Vintage ’65 “gray bottom” single-coil Strat® pickups.
The gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finish, as used on Fender instruments from the ’50s and ’60s, reveals the instrument’s true tonal character. The alder body delivers a well-balanced tone with beefy mids and a robust low end, while vintage-tall frets make it easier to bend notes without fretting out.
The Pure Vintage ’65 pickups are specially voiced to reproduce the authentic sound and performance of the individual model year. They are constructed like pickups from Fender’s golden years, using cloth-covered wire, fiber bobbins and alnico magnets. The Pure Vintage synchronized tremolo features bent steel saddles.
Every piece of American Vintage II hardware, from the bridge to the string tree and tuning machines, is manufactured to look, sound and function like the hardware on the originals. Much of it is still made on the original ’50s- and ’60s-era Fender factory machines.
The instruments in the American Vintage II series are direct descendants of the original Fenders: designed for players with a fine appreciation for vintage Fender tone and feel and built with unmatched quality, down to the last screw. These are Fender electrics in their purest form: Fender American Vintage II, the stuff of legends.