Why cover up expensive rotten wood with cheap sterile plastic?
That comment how an Explorer is male and a TBird feminine is interesting, I never saw it that way, but it is true. Ray Dietrich certainly had a look at Ted McCarthy's prior and commercially failed Modernistic Guitars when he - well into retirement from his auto design days -designed the TBirds and FBirds in the early sixties. And Ray Dietrich's auto designs were from another time, he wasn't a radical modernist at all, I see a lot of 30ies and 40ies in his auto design. So in a way the TBird/FBird was mellowing down the angular jagged Explorer which was also a reverse design (Dietrich had nothing to do with the later Non Rev TBs and FBs).
TBirds certainly appeal to women, given how large a bass it is, a lot of chicks play it though it is an unlikely choice for their size. And I've alsways received compliments for my TBirds from women (both musician and non-musician) while the Explorer basses only ever generate enthusiasm from men.
