By the mid-1980s Fender were in a mess. Declining quality, cheap imports and the far better build quality of Japanese Fender instruments had damaged public perception of the CBS-era guitars. The buyout by William Shultz and other investors and the appointment of Dan Smith started the turnaround in fortunes that would restore confidence in the company and return them to the top of the sales charts just in time to catch the drift away from music driven by Gibson-esque humbucker overdrive and towards cleaner single-coil guitar sounds that sat well with the horrible FM synthesisers that would dominate the pop charts for the rest of the decade. And that's when I bought this ...

The introduction of the US Standard Stratocaster in 1987 is widely reckoned to have saved Fender and my 1987 or 1988 (can't remember!) guitar is one of the very best examples of their output at this time. It's an "EE serial" - supposedly "European Export" although I can't find any definitive evidence that this is what the letters mean. I've owned and played a lot of guitars over the years but I've never found one as good as this. It's done thousands of gigs and recording sessions and never failed me. The bridge pickup has been replaced by a Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II and it's had a refret with massive stainless steel frets. That finish is called gun metal blue, only used in the late 1980s and now only available from Fender Japan or Fender Custom Shop so be prepared for some wallet pain if you want a replica. This is on the "never selling" list. In fact it's probably going in the ground with me.