ShortScale.org

Saw this over at :

Customers, for the first time, will be able to order and buy guitars at the Fender website beginning in late November, according to William McGlashan, the founder and managing partner of TPG Growth. This includes “custom-configurable� guitars, like the famed Telecaster and Stratocaster that can be made to a user’s unique specifications. Such orders will likely take about two to three months for delivery.

Will be interesting to see how these will be priced. Not holding my breath for any Jags, Mustangs etc.

LANK

I hope they make offsets available for customizing. Maybe it won't happen immediately, but if this service succeeds, hopefully they'll expand their range.

Interested to see how this all works and to what extent you can customise. Probably expensive as heck if you go too off the beaten path

But lol at the article picture being a flame quilted tele with gold hardware monstrosity

By coincidence, I was listening to something on the radio as I drove to see a band at a pub last night about how build-to-order would be the next big thing - in 1995. The idea is that it would avoid overstocking and give people what they want. Apparently Ford are now considering it.

I want a Stratocaster modified to look like a Jaguar with the headstock carved into the shape of an ass lightly folded around a flaccid, leaking penis.

It'll be absolutely pointless because it'll be so expensive. They've probably just run out of ideas and want Joe Public to do it for them by disguising it as custom ordering. Wankers.

If it's anything like the parts they were promoting recently they'll be both expensive and with very limited choices.

If you've got free rein to actually get whatever (within reason) you want then it might be quite cool. Had a quick look at what parts they were offering recently and it was only Strats or Teles (no surprise). You had a choice of four necks: Maple MIM, Rosewood MIM, Maple MIA, Rosewood MIA. All 9.5" radius, all medium jumbo frets, all the same profile, one headstock. Bodies were the same and pretty much just available in colours you can buy strats in anyway.

They were touting it as a way to put together your perfect guitar but it would have been exactly the same as one of the millions of Strats you can already buy. Only more expensive. And you'd have to build it yourself.

Interested to see how customisable this will be, but I'm not holding my breath.

The fact that the emphasis of the article is on the "buying direct" angle rather than the "custom configurable" angle leads me to believe gear forums are getting their hopes up a bit over this. That article reads like it was written by and for non-guitarists.

Basically, what bearboy said: Choice of fretboard wood, a few electronic configs, 3-5 finish options, pickguard/hardware colour, etc... they probably just want to kill off a bunch of iterations of strat and tele in their bloated sinking ship, maybe even cut some retailers out of the deal.
If they offered too wide a range of choice it would just be the custom shop. You can already order any Fender you want through any licensed Fender retailer with virtually no limitation, will cost you thousands of dollars. For this experiment to be even halfway worthwhile to the corporation without charging custom shop prices it will pretty much have to be the chance to build 1 of 3-4 possible Strats or Teles from pre-manufactured parts done in mass production. Doesn't actually offer the consumer much besides a new feeling to the buying experience (and a longer turnaround lol).

I've been thinking for awhile they should do something akin to this, which is sell a few series of "The Stratocaster" and then have options like single coils/humbuckers and hardtail/tremolo, similar to how certain models have a maple/rosewood fretboard option. They make way too many versions of all their guitars, some with very marginal differences... and a bunch of those end up with universal body routes/the same necks anyway.