The Fender American Ultra Luxe Vintage ’60s Stratocaster’s retro-futuristic formula seamlessly melds modern playability with undeniably old-school soul, providing you with a superior Strat experience that’s primed for professional performance. A lightweight alder body, carved with Ultra contours and a sculpted neck heel, gives this guitar effortless upper-fret access right from the start. Next, the satin-finished, quarter-sawn maple neck boasts a wide Modern D profile, a compound-radius fingerboard, and hard-wearing stainless steel frets that offer playability to rival even the most cutting-edge of contemporary 6-string creations. As for the tone, this Strat’s trio of Pure Vintage ’61 Stratocaster pickups dishes out a smoother, slightly warmer snap compared to 1950s-era Strats. You also get expanded pickup possibilities via S-1 switching. A high-octane hardware complement further ups the ante with a self-lubricating TUSQ nut, Deluxe locking tuning machines, and a 2-post American Ultra synchronized tremolo with polished stainless steel saddles and a cold-rolled steel block. Finally, it’s all wrapped in a semi-gloss Heirloom nitro lacquer finish that beams with captivating checking lines and alluring aging, maximizing your guitar’s resonance and gracefully wearing in the more you play.

Optimized Ultra Luxe comfort

This Strat begins with the seriously high-performance foundation laid down by the Fender Ultra Luxe line, providing you with all the playability-enhancing benefits of a modern axe while retaining the vibe of a vintage treasure. From the alder body’s Ultra contours and tapered neck heel to the quarter-sawn maple neck’s Modern D profile, every element of this Strat is built to supply optimal comfort and facilitate lightning-fast playability — a fact further bolstered by the 10-inch to 14-inch compound radius, luxurious Ultra Rolled edges, and Luminlay side dots. Heavy-duty stainless steel medium-jumbo frets seal the deal, offering a lustrous, smooth feel when bending and an extreme resistance to fret wear.

Genuine golden-age Strat sonics

To temper its multitude of modern upgrades, the American Ultra Luxe Vintage ’60s Stratocaster comes equipped with unadulterated Fender sonics. In fact, this guitar’s trio of Pure Vintage ’60s ’61 Stratocaster pickups comprises the very same single-coils found in the time-tested American Vintage line of period-correct Fender creations. From their cloth-covered wire to their fiber bobbins, Pure Vintage pickups surgically replicate the composition of single-coils originally crafted in Fullerton, California, more than half a century ago. Plus, while these pickups deliver the deep lows and chiming highs so beloved by vintage Fender devotees, an S-1 switch located on the volume pot rounds out your arsenal of classic Fender tones with distinctive bridge/neck and bridge/neck/middle pickup configurations.

Aged-in Heirloom nitro lacquer finish

For guitarists who crave the charming patina of a well-aged axe, only traditional nitrocellulose lacquer will do. Fender used nitro lacquer as the standard finish throughout its mid-century golden age, and players still champion it today for the way it naturally cracks, checks, and ages with a look and feel that’s undeniably appealing. The American Ultra Luxe Vintage lineup kick-starts this process with an Heirloom lacquer coat: a nitro lacquer finish with a semi-gloss shine and a lightly aged exterior. Moreover, scores of vintage Fender followers believe that a thin nitro finish both enhances an instrument aesthetically and also allows the guitar’s body to better resonate and sustain. Finally, because of nitro’s natural unpredictability, every American Ultra Luxe Vintage guitar sports a truly unique arrangement of checking, wear, and crazing that will only continue to gracefully develop the more you play.

American Ultra Luxe Vintage: professional playability with an old-school soul

Fender has explored the “vintage-meets-modern” formula many times over the years, but it’s never felt more fully realized than in the American Ultra Luxe Vintage series. In essence, this lineup merges key playability-enhancing features of the Ultra Luxe range — medium-jumbo stainless steel frets, contemporary contours, compound-radius fingerboards, superior switching, and beyond — with period-accurate Pure Vintage pickups and retro Fender aesthetics. Wrapped up in unabashedly retro Heirloom nitro lacquer finishes with light aging, American Ultra Luxe Vintage instruments shatter the vintage/modern dichotomy by combining the most compelling elements of Fender’s past and present into a single high-performance package.

Fender America