Japanese Mustang Basses - a question

[Chris P.]

Hi guys. I was GASsing on Mustang pics and I have a question. Of course in Europe you can buy the normal one and the Pawn Shops. Fender Japan also makes two competition striped ones. A CAR and a blue one. I thought I saw pics years ago of more colours from Japan. I always liked the orange one with red stripes and I thought that one was reissued too in the nineties. Can somebody help me out?

[Chris P.]

Found a pic and one for sale in Australia, so they excist.

[Pilgrim]

From the website: http://fendermustangstory.com/   (links are found at the website...)

The biggest change to the Mustang occurred in 1969. The forearm contour and the back contour are added to the body. This marks the end of the slab bodied Mustangs. The "Made-In-Japan Fender '69 Mustangs" are reissue of this era of Mustangs. Also, this is the year the Competition Mustangs were introduced. Basically, the Competition Mustangs are Mustangs with different paint scheme. They came in Competition Red (w/cream stripes), Competition Burgandy (Blue)(w/light blue stripes), and Competition Orange (w/dark orange stripes) colors with contrasting racing strips right around the forearm contour on the front side of the body. The stripes were "thin-thick-thin" stripes with the base body color showing between the stripes. The stripes were only applied on the front of the body and not on the back. The Competition models apparently came standard with matching headstocks. However, there are a significant number of these Competition Mustangs with non-matching headstocks, so it may have been sold both ways. My guess would be that the earlier ('69 through mid-'71) Competitions all had matching headstocks and the later (mid-'71 through '72) ones had non-matching headstocks. The Competition "Burgandy" color has been puzzling to me for a while as "burgandy" to mean means a reddish color with a blue hue or something close to the color purple. Fender had a custom color called "Burgandy Mist Metallic" which would be described as "light purple." But in my search on the web, I found a reference to the color "burgandy" being associated to a dark blue color in one of the car advertisement of the 60s. I guess that's where the burgandy-blue color reference Fender used came from. I always thought somebody at Fender screwed up and accidentally called the dark blue guitar "burgandy"...

And below that...

Around 1970, the regular Mustangs were discontinued and replaced by the Competition Mustangs. None of the feature on Mustangs really change until about 1973 and since a '67 Mustang isn't really worth more than a '72 Mustang, I don't think anybody really took great interest during this era unlike the more expensive Stratocasters and Telecasters. Besides, Fender stopped dating the neck in this time frame and started using codes that require deciphering, making it doubly difficult to tell the manufacture date (yes, you can still look at the pot dates). Greg Gagliano has deciphered the neck coding of this era, check his article out in the link just below. I know as a fact that there are Red, White, and Blue Mustangs with body contours so my guess would be that the regular Mustangs continued into 1969 and was replaced by the Competition Mustangs sometime during 1969. The Competition Mustangs were made in lefty versions also, although they were probably a special order item.

Here's a 1970 Fender Color Chart. It shows the following colors for the Mustang:

510 Competition Orange
511 Competition Burgandy
512 Competition Red
This chart also shows the plain "Red" (color code 515) and plain "Blue" (color code 517) used on the Musicmasters and Duo-Sonic. These colors were used on the pre-'69 Mustangs and were not called "Dakota Red" or "Daphne Blue." Competition Orange is not shown on the 1972 Color Chart so it looks like this color was dropped after one or two years.

[Aussie Mark]

There's an ebay seller who sells the stripes pre-cut in various colours.  I bought a MIJ Mustang in fiesta red, and added the stripes myself




Here's the ebay listing for stripes .... http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/FENDER-MUSTANG-BASS-GUITAR-COMPETITION-RACING-STRIPE-/361111321320?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item5413e97ae8

[Pilgrim]

I have a Bronco that I did my own stripes on.  These stripes are automotive chrome striping tape....I cut it to preference using my wife's rolling fabric cutter and a straight edge.  But I didn't really bother to try and match the dimensions on the original stripes, just eyeballed it.

I have a pearloid pickguard for that bass too, just haven't bothered to mount it yet....

[Rob]

Those are great mods guys!

[leftybass]

Closest I can get to a lefty Mustang, an SX short-scale, got the stripes off ebay.

[Pilgrim]

Und mit der purple chicken-head knobs, yet!!  Cool!

[Rob]

Und mit der purple chicken-head knobs, yet!!  Cool!

Choked chickens

[gearHed289]

Short scale P Bass? That's cool! I'm surprised Fender hasn't made one yet.

[Dave W]

Short scale P Bass? That's cool! I'm surprised Fender hasn't made one yet.

Fender did make one, it was called the Precision Bass Junior and had a 28.6" scale length. MIM. Came out in the early 2000s, IIRC, and hung around a few years.

[slinkp]

I remember going to the music store for my first bass in (I believe) 1980 and there was a used short-scale Fender bass there that I think was called a "mini precision". I don't remember much else about it except that I passed on it because it had a bad fret buzz.

[chromium]

Fender did make one, it was called the Precision Bass Junior and had a 28.6" scale length. MIM. Came out in the early 2000s, IIRC, and hung around a few years.

Almost bought one of those a few years ago!
The store where my son was taking drum lessons had one on the floor.  Think it had Barts in it, so it may have been modded.  It was a fun little bass.

[gearHed289]

I remember the minis, but those had a miniature body. I have a Samick like that with a 24.75'' scale.

[slinkp]

Hmm. Did a smidgen of research. It appears there was nothing called a "mini precision" in the late 70s  / early 80s. So possibly the sales clerk used that term informally and the instrument was actually something else. Either it was a Mustang, or I mis-remember the year of that sighting and it was a more precision-like Bullet B30 (introduced in 1982).  More likely the former, since I'm pretty sure it was a used instrument at a big used guitar sale event, and was selling very cheaply - maybe $100 or so.