While the later versions with the SD pickups, and tune-o-matic bridge can be found for sale, on a regular basis, I'm not a big fan of them. I prefer the original series Toronados. Unfortunately, the original series Toronados were never that common to begin with, and are pretty scarce nowadays. I found one at a local music store back in 2008, but it was in rough shape, and was overpriced for its condition, so I passed on it. On eBay and Reverb.com, they have gotten kind of pricey (especially for the less common colored ones [like banana yellow, tangerine, or charcoal gray]), and since I doubted that a Toro would be my main guitar, I didn't want to pay the prices being asked. So, I resigned myself to putting the Toronado, on my low level GAS list (willing to wait long term, for one to show up at a price I could live with).
5 weeks ago, I got lucky. Out of boredom, I paid a visit to Cream City Music (in the Milwaukee area), to pass the time. What did I see hanging from the wall? A 1999 Fender Toronado! It turned out that somebody had sold it to Cream City Music, as a part of larger sale of guitars in their collection. I tried it out. Other than having some neglect related issues (it was missing a knob, had a few small finish dings, and for some reason, one of the strings was strung on the wrong side of the tuning peg), and the need for some setup work, it was in decent shape. It also sounded killer, and played great. I asked how much Cream City wanted for the Toronado, and was told I could have it for $255. Sold!! Cream City, also threw in a free control knob to replace the missing one (the 1998-2003 Toros basically used the same knobs as the Precision bass), and told me that I could have setup work done on it by their on-site luthier. I was ready to pass on the set-up offer (I usually do my own setup work), but when they told it would be free of charge (all I had to do, was supply the strings), I said "sure, go ahead".
Unfortunately, due to the backlog their luthier had, my Toronado wasn't done until 3 weeks later. Normally this would have been annoying to me, but I have other guitars to play so it wasn't like I was guitarless. As it was, until yesterday, I hadn't been able to play guitar for the past 3 weeks, due contracting a severe case of dermatitis on my legs and arms (which made it too uncomfortable to play guitar), as a result of changing to a different brand of laundry detergent. I got rid of the offending detergent, and thanks to prednisone prescribed by my doctor, the dermatitis is finally going away, and I feel comfortable enough to play guitar again. While I was doing laundry last night, I spent time playing the Toronado. Just like my old one, it sounded killer both clean, and dirty, and played like a million bucks. It looks like I have a winner! Here's a photo of it:
