The Fender Custom Shop has been building dream guitars for nearly 20 years now. These include everything from faithful reproductions of classic models of the past to fully tweaked instruments built to an individual’s personal specifications. A select few instruments are hand-built by the master luthiers, the same skilled artisans that build custom instruments for the likes of Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Merle Haggard. Other Custom Shop models are “Team-Built” stock instruments. Most recently, the Custom Shop set out to build two limited-edition Esquires and four Stratocasters.
Today we’ll be looking at the two Esquire models, which are patterned after the early pre-CBS instruments. This includes a limited run of only 100 Fender Custom Shop Builder Select Esquire Heavy Relic LTD (John English) models in a Vintage Blonde nitrocellulose lacquer finish with special hand-wound “Stealth” pickups under the pickguard (the original Esquire had only a single coil bridge pickup, so to keep the vintage look, Fender put the pickups where they couldn’t be seen). It’s also gotten the full Relic treatment and includes all the cool vintage appointments. The second Esquire, which is dubbed the Fender Custom Shop Esquire Relic LTD, is also going to be limited to a run of just 100 guitars, but these are more like the original Esquires, with just the single pickup in the bridge position, plus the full Relic treatment and all the vintage appointments. Both include a certificate of authenticity and a limited edition black hardshell case. As you can imagine, these will become instant collector’s items, so call your Sweetwater Sales Engineer right away for complete details, pricing, and availability.
