Fender "Soups-Up" The Highway One Series Guitars And Basses

Jul 14, 2006

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Fender® is very proud to announce that it has upgraded its popular line of Highway One™ Series instruments with new features designed to offer the benchmark of Fender innovation, quality and value in an American made instrument. Based on overwhelming consumer feedback, each instrument in the Highway One line—including the Highway One Stratocaster®, Telecaster®, P Bass® and Jazz Bass® guitars—feature newly designed pickups, new hardware and new electronics to meet the demanding needs of today's players.

The new models are a supercharged version of their former selves—completely upgraded and overhauled. The look of these instruments is still no-frills, but they are true tone machines. Every upgrade and feature has to do with playability and sound, and not simply cosmetic enhancements.

For the Stratocaster and Telecaster electric guitars, new features include hotter pickups that offer a thick high-gain guitar sound and that are more distortion friendly than typical single-coil pickups. Alnico III magnets are used to round off the tonal spectrum, especially at the extreme high end that gets magnified and sometimes sounds harsh in high gain situations. These pickups are also wound specifically to provide higher output, providing a more direct and balanced rock sound. A new "Greasebucket" circuit has also been added to the bridge pickup, which rolls back the highs without adding that muffled tone.

The Stratocaster and Telecaster guitar models also featured larger frets for smooth, easy bending, a new high-mass bridge for increased sustain, and narrowed bridge saddles to keep the strings from slipping off the edge, especially with the bigger frets.

The new Highway One P Bass and Jazz Bass guitars feature new colors and a classic '70s styling. Additionally, Fender's patented graphite reinforcement rods have been added to the necks for added stability, and a heavy Badass II™ bridge—a very popular after market modification—has been added for increased performance and great sound.

All models in the new Highway One Series instruments from Fender feature their signature thin satin nitrocellulose lacquer, which is a highly sought-after finish that is usually reserved for much more expensive instruments. This finish lets the wood's tonality shine through, allowing it to breathe and reverberate, and enhancing the overall tone of the instrument.

A number of unique colors are available on all of the new Highway One Series instruments, and each one comes with a deluxe Fender gig bag.

US MSRP begins at $999.99.

For more information, visit their web site at www.fender.com.