Fender Vintera II Road Worn 60s Stratocaster review – “this guitar is like spending time with an old friend”
$1,599/£1,349, fender.com
There’s an argument to be made that Fender’s Vintera II range is the absolute sweet spot in the company’s line-up – electric guitars that look, feel and sound impressively close to the Golden Era originals, but with prices more in line with guitars made in FMIC’s Ensenada, Mexico factory.
READ MORE: Fender American Ultra Luxe Vintage Stratocaster HSS review: “probably the best marriage of vintage and modern features out there”
Back when the range initially launched in 2023, my colleague Josh went so far as to call the Vintera II Strat “the new benchmark for import Strats” and you can see why – for less than half the price of an American Vintage II guitar, you can own a Strat that has much of the mojo and a fair dollop of the vintage accuracy of the USA flagship. And now they’re about to turn all that up to 11.
It’s been a decade or more since Fender first experimented with factory ageing in the Ensenada factory. The original Road Worn guitars were well-received back in 2013, but even at the time the artificial wear and tear felt a little templated. Since then, Fender has clearly been hard at work – the Mike McCready Strat that came out late in 2023 showed that Ensenada’s factory relic’ing had come on leaps and bounds, but it also suggested there might be limits to mass-produced wear and tear as well.
For the revival of the Road Worn concept then, Fender has taken a more considered path – but one that might be the best of all worlds.
Image: Adam Gasson
Fender Vintera II Road Worn 60s Stratocaster – what is it?
In simple terms, it takes Fender’s Vintera II 60s Strat, strips it off the standard gloss polyurethane finish, and swaps it out for a bona fide nitrocellulose lacquer job. However, unlike the previous Road Worn guitars, you won’t find any over-the-top wear patches or faux-buckle rash here. Not a single pair of heavy keys has been chucked at it in anger. Instead, you have something that, from a distance, has more in common with Fender’s Lacquer series from 2015 – a Mexican guitar with a nitro finish that appears pretty much pristine. However, when you look closer you’ll find it’s more interesting than that.
Rather than spray a lacquer top coat on the guitar and wait 60 years for anything interesting to happen to the finish, Fender has helped it along by a few decades. That means that while the guitar’s finish is factory-fresh at a distance, closer inspection reveals lacquer checking across the body and neck, while the hardware has all been aged too.
It’s the sort of Closet Classic treatment that previously has only been available at a Custom Shop level, which will set you back the thick end of five grand, though it’s interesting that the USA-made Ultra Luxe Vintage range took a similarly restrained approach to factory ageing with its ‘Heirloom’ finish – are we finally seeing players move away from the heavier relic thing? Time will tell.
Image: Adam Gasson
Finish asides, it is, as mentioned, a Vintera II 60s Stratocaster – that means you get an alder body, Vintage-Style 60s Single-Coil Strat pickups, bent steel saddles, and the Vintera II policy of ‘close but not quite’ when it comes to vintage accuracy.
For example, while the guitar has the body contours of a 60s guitar and a vintage-style 7.25-inch radius and tall vintage frets, it doesn’t go so far as to give you a period-correct three-way selector switch – and that’s probably a smart choice.
The neck is slightly more perturbing, however – this black finish comes with a one-piece maple neck: a combination that was only available in 1965 as a custom order. Given that this combination of finish and neck was much more standard in the 50s, I’m somewhat at a loss as to why they didn’t give it a single-ply white pickguard instead of the green-hued three-ply version here, throw in some 50s pickups and go full Clapton’s Blackie.
There is a rosewood-boarded Sonic Blue option if you want something that feels more traditionally 60s. But occasional concessions to historical incongruity are part and parcel of the Vintera II range, and if you want something that’s more rigorously faithful, well you’re welcome to spend an extra grand to get yourself an American Vintage II.
Image: Adam Gasson
Fender Vintera II Road Worn 60s Stratocaster – build quality and playability
Cork-sniffingly accurate it might not be however, but pulling the guitar out of its supplied vintage-style hard case it’s hard not to be impressed. The finish is beautifully thin, and the Road Worn effect is impressively restrained. You have to hold it up to the light to really see the cracking and checking, while the hardware is dull but doesn’t look like it’s been sitting at the bottom of a lake for 50 years. It all adds up to a beautiful ever-so-slightly worn-in feel to the whole thing – like a pair of good boots that have just been broken in.
The contours of the body are convincingly svelte like many a 60s original, and the alder body is nicely lightweight at just under 7.5lbs.
That maple neck’s 60s C-shape profile is reassuringly chunky, but not so much that it ever gets uncomfortable in the palm – sitting down with this guitar is like spending time with an old friend. That said, the tint to the fingerboard and the level of checking around the headstock are perhaps the only areas of the guitar where the relic job starts to look a little fake, in my opinion.
Image: Adam Gasson
Fender Vintera II Road Worn 60s Stratocaster – sounds
Played unplugged, the light weight, and perhaps the lack of heavy finish to the body and neck, combined with that lovely feeling neck and vintage frets, add up to a resonant and chimey voice with sparkle, body and plenty of sustain.
The natural place to go from here is to plug in my old Deluxe Reverb and see if things continue to impress – they certainly do, greeting me with a superb classic Strat tone from the bridge single coil. To my ears, vintage-sized frets can also sound a touch clearer and more defined than modern jumbo ones, and played clean the Road Worn has all the clarity and definition you could require for funk and pop playing, while still having ample midrange to cut through a mix.
Switching to the middle pickup we get plenty of Stevie snarl and bite, and with a bit of overdrive, the most vocal of the three voices. Adding some fuzz, I revel in the Hendrixy neck pickup tones that offer plenty of flutey chime to single notes, double stops and chordal fills, especially when reducing the volume a touch.
The in-between positions give us authentic Mayer and Knopflerisms aplenty, and it’s to this guitar’s genuine credit that each position really does demonstrate an almost cliché level of appropriateness of how a dream Strat should sound.
Despite the midrange having an authentically 60s-style light scoop, the pickups demonstrate plenty of bite, snap and twang across the board, beautifully enhancing the sonic characteristics of the alder body, maple neck combo. Compared to my vintage 1962 Strat, the Vintera perhaps doesn’t quite have the 3D depth and top-end sweetness to the pickups, but to be this close to the real deal for this price? That’s hugely impressive.
Image: Adam Gasson
Fender Vintera II Road Worn 60s Stratocaster – should I buy one?
The original Vintera II 60s Strat was a seriously impressive instrument, and while the price bump to make it Road Worn is significant, in terms of feel, playability and overall vibe I think it’s worth the extra $300 – it elevates this guitar into something that really could be your guitar for life.
While I still think it’s crying out for a more 50s treatment given the spec sheet, there’s no denying that it’s a superbly resonant, tuneful and enjoyable instrument. Some players will want bigger frets and a 9.5 radius, but that’s not really what the Vintera II range is for, and this Road Worn version doubles down on that in the best way.
This is a guitar that doesn’t embarrass itself put up against not just the USA-made American Vintage II range, but also Custom Shop guitars – it’s a long time since I’ve played a Mexican-made Fender guitar that was this inspirational, and I don’t think I’ve ever played one that captures the vintage aura so well.
The only downside, really, is that they’re limited edition – so don’t wait on this one, grab one while you can, you won’t regret it!
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Fender Vintera II Road Worn 60s Stratocaster – alternatives
If the nitro thing isn’t an issue for you, the regular Vintera II 60s Strat is a steal at $1,209/£999. If you want something that nails the vintage thing even more closely, the American Vintage II 1965 Stratocaster is a lot of guitar for $2,419/£2,299. If you want something that veers from tradition while still keeping a lot of the vintage vibes, John Mayer’s PRS SE Silver Sky ($949) is seriously impressive.
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