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Fender Mustang Story knows for a fact that there are mid to late 60's mustangs, non competition (ie Dakota Red, Olympic White & Daphne Blue) with body contours.


Have never seen one, ever ever. at all on teh internetz or in person.


Have you?

I've seen a lot of Mustangs, but I can't say I've ever seen that. But anything is possible with Fender back in those days.

Could one have slipped out of the factory? Sure.
Did it survive intact (recognizable as the rare bird you seek) after all these years? Your guess is as good as mine.

no

No

KPI wrote:Fender Mustang Story knows for a fact that there are mid to late 60's mustangs, non competition (ie Dakota Red, Olympic White & Daphne Blue) with body contours.


Have never seen one, ever ever. at all on teh internetz or in person.


Have you?

Hi, KPI. Our Mustang historian, Mr. Maxima, says:

"The biggest change to the Mustang occurred in 1969. The forearm contour and the back contour are added to the body. This marks the end of the slab bodied Mustangs."

I've read a few other Mustang histories and just don't recall hearing about this myth of pre '69 contours. Maybe I just missed it. Can you cite your source? I'd like to add it to my Mustang articles.

I suppose it's possible that a few transition or prototype guitars were made with contours and the original red / white / blue colors, but I've never heard about them, nor have I ever seen such a beast. The line between Competition Mustangs and the earlier slab bodied models seem to be pretty distinct. You do find compstang necks with "9" codes on them (Mustangs used 8 and 9 codes in the mid 60s to indicate 24" and 22.5" scale lengths) and '66 date codes, but those are just the remaining / leftover 22.5" necks that Fender was trying to use up with the Competition Mustangs and the Swingers. By about mid '71, the non-matching headstocks start showing up on the Competition Mustangs - my '71 is one of the earlier examples. The shortscale necks and the competition orange color also disappear around that point.

Fender was still making a similarly shaped slab-bodied guitar after '69, and in the original colors - at least for a while. The Musicmaster II never had contours, even from '69-'76, so even with the new features on the new Mustangs, they still had a way to use up any surplus slab bodies that hadn't been routed for a dynamic vibrato. I've never seen an all-original Competition Mustang with a slab body. And since the Competition Mustangs were the new thing, there really wasn't any good reason to use the new bodies with the old paint schemes either.

I'll ask my friends over at Fender if they can confirm that, but I don't think that there were is a significant amount of non-competition, contoured '69 Mustangs out there - if any.

referenced below:

Around 1970, the regular Mustangs were discontinued and replaced by the Competition Mustangs. None of the feature on Mustangs really change until about 1973 and since a '67 Mustang isn't really worth more than a '72 Mustang, I don't think anybody really took great interest during this era unlike the more expensive Stratocasters and Telecasters. Besides, Fender stopped dating the neck in this time frame and started using codes that require deciphering, making it doubly difficult to tell the manufacture date (yes, you can still look at the pot dates). Greg Gagliano has deciphered the neck coding of this era, check his article out in the link just below. I know as a fact that there are Red, White, and Blue Mustangs with body contours so my guess would be that the regular Mustangs continued into 1969 and was replaced by the Competition Mustangs sometime during 1969. The Competition Mustangs were made in lefty versions also, although they were probably a special order item.

this statement was there as far back as maybe 1998, def by 1999. I have never seen one during this period. would love to have one tho.

no

nope never and i have had plenty of them, what bums me out is that when the contours appeared duo sonics disappeared. cbs buttholes

i want a duo with contours.

hotrodperlmutter wrote:i want a duo with contours.

DAMN STRAIGHT, I would imagine a duo sonic II with contours would be so epic.

I've got a Duo Sonic with contours

Although officially it's a 65 Musicmaster II. A previous owner added a second pickup and sanded in some contours, like a Mustang but not as deep.

I had a 65 Mustang with contours, courtesy of LRC, not Fender. Best Mustang i've played as well, the body had some real weight to it and sustain. A bit out of character really.

Fender never did anything starting on a "day", so the possibility of a contoured R/W/B Mustang sounds much more likely than ever seeing a Slab Competition.

BUT REMEMBER THIS RULE:
Fender made 1 of everything.

isn't there a picture of one in the Bacon Fender book?

hotrodperlmutter wrote:i want a duo with contours.

http://shortscale.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46769
Can has contours.

ha ha, i just yesterday re-read this thread, and thought... "i wonder how much coot would mek me one for..."

so... there it is... duo-sonic II with 3-way switch route (no phases) & contours?