The Fender Mustang

Introduced in August 1964, The Fender Mustang was basically a Duo-Sonic with the new style dynamic vibrato system. It was only available in three colours: Red, Blue, and White.

Although similar to Fender's custom colours, Dakota Red, Daphne Blue, and Olympic White, these titles were apparently never used on the Mustang.

The Red and Blue ones came with white pearl pickguards, black pickup covers with no visible pole pieces, and black slider switches.

The White models came with red tortoiseshell pickguards and white pickup covers with white slider switches.

The white pickup switches were made of different plastic than the pickup covers and kept their colour over the years, unlike the pickup covers, which age to a greenish colour.

The 1965-1966 Fender Mustang

Several things changed in 1965/66. The biggest was the enlargement of the headstock, in line with the larger headstock found on other Fenders of the time.

In-keeping with the larger headstock, the tuners were changed to the F-keys style with squared-off white plastic pegs.

The neck plate was changed to the F-series style and the pickup baseplate becomes grey in colour.

The Mustang was produced until 1982 and reissued in 1990, when it grew more popular with a new generation of young players, largely as a result of its use by a number of grunge rock bands. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana almost single handedly resurrected interest in the model.

Earlier examples are generally the most sought after of all the short-scale Fender guitars, along with the Fender Mustang short-scale bass guitar.

The Mustang has two single coil pickups with its own switching configuration, and a unique tremolo system which is only shared with the similar sister model, the Jag-Stang.