1985 Fender Stratocaster Made In Japan

Well cared for example of an 80’s Japanese Stratocaster in candy red.   Barely played, with no fret wear and not a bump or scratch in sight. The highly lacquered maple neck is chunky, certainly vintage flavoured. It’s completely as factory apart from the replacement pearloid scratchplate.

 It looks, plays and sounds like a well made Fender Strat, as you would expect.

Only marmite thing is the weird trem system they built for a few years on these guitars. To start with it’s just plain ugly, and more importantly it just doesn’t feel right.

I don’t know exactly what it is; the balance is out of whack somehow. It neither glides like a 2 point Wilkinson trem nor pings back into true tuning like an Ibanez ZR system, falling miles short of either on performance.