First Impressions: Fender Vintera II Road Worn 60’s Telecaster In Blonde

I’ve just bought myself one of the new Road Worn 60’s Telecasters.

Now that I’ve had it for a full week, what do I think of it? Does it live up to the hype? Read on for my first impressions of my new guitar, which I’ve named Jody.

What Did You Buy?
Why Did You Buy It?
Why I Bought From AStrings
What’s It Really Like?
Does The Guitar Have A Name?
Final Thoughts

What Did You Buy?

I bought a Fender Vintera II Limited Edition Road Worn 60’s Telecaster in Blonde finish.

“Fender” is the manufacturer.
“Vintera II” is the primary instrument range. This indicates that it is a second-generation design from Fender’s vintage-inspired line of products.
“Limited Edition” is to distinguish this from older guitars in the Vintera II Road Worn series.
“Road Worn” refers to the guitar’s finishing and relicing. These Limited Edition Road Worn guitars have a light nitro finish (as opposed to Fender’s regular poly plastic finish), and have very limited / subtle artificial aging (aka relicing).
“60s Telecaster in Blonde” is the guitar spec. This indicates that it has a thin, light yellow finish, with a maple-cap fretboard.

This guitar appears to be inspired by the late 60’s white guard Fender Telecaster. It cannot be considered to be an outright reissue, as it definitely mixes specs from other eras too.

I wasn’t familiar with this particular vintage Telecaster before. Thankfully, Zac Childs has a fantastic deep-dive into this on his YouTube channel. Please go and watch this; it will help you understand what’s going on with this guitar – and why this guitar is a really big deal with some Telecaster fans.

I bought mine brand new from AStrings.co.uk. I went down to their awesome new store to try the guitar first (more on that in a moment!), and I’m very glad that I did (more on that too in a moment 🙂).

Why Did You Buy It?

Why Was I Looking For Another Telecaster?

I currently own two Telecasters: Jessie (my 52 Reissue) and Mirage (my 63 Postmodern). They’re both quite niche (which is why I like them):

Jessie has the Nocaster blend control wiring, and the stock bridge saddles eat up some of that typical Tele top-end. It’s perfect for my Tweed Deluxe rig because it lacks that Tele twang.
Mirage has a neck humbucker, and a reverse-mounted bridge pickup. I love it precisely because it doesn’t have that typical Telecaster sound at all.

I also have Spot (my American Deluxe) as my “typical Tele”. It does the modern Tele thing really well (the current Ultra Teles are basically a revival of the American Deluxe spec). It’s also got phenomenal cleans, right up there with Fender’s Custom Shop Rosewood Tele. (I’ve often described it as the best-sounding Strat that I’ve ever owned.)

In recent years, though, my tastes have changed. I’ve come to love larger necks and vintage radius fretboards. I also feel that vintage-voiced Teles work better with my Tweed Deluxe amp.

So, I’ve casually been looking out for a replacement – something that will scratch that vintage itch. Preferably something more representative of the 60s Telecaster.

I was expecting to have to go Custom Shop to get what I’m looking for. But there’s been a problem with that.

The Price Was Right For Me

I have tried a few 60s-spec Fender Custom Shop Telecasters over the last couple of years. They were excellent guitars. The problem, though, is that I currently can’t justify Custom Shop prices on such a guitar.

A 60’s Telecaster just isn’t going to be a workhorse for me (unless one surprises me). It’s going to be something I grab every now and then when I fancy a change or when I’m exploring a new (to me) pedal and the like.

This Vintera II Limited Edition Road Worn 60s Telecaster, though? At this price, I’m willing to take a punt on it.

Buy Now, Or Forget It

Part of me hates admitting this, because Fender does not need encouragement to do this more often. But – in the interest of being totally honest – it was a big consideration.

These guitars are a limited run. Fender has said they’re not making any more. Once stores have sold out, that’s meant to be it.

So when I sat down to try the guitar in the shop, I felt that had to treat it as-if it is an out-of-production piece of gear: if I walked away from it, I had to be okay with the idea that I might never have one.

So all of the above – need, pricing, limited availability – that’s what convinced me to go and try the guitar today.

What got me to bring it home with me from the shop was the experience of playing the instrument. It sings.

It’s Got The Bones Of A Great Guitar

Look beyond where it was made, and a couple of niggles that I’ll cover shortly, and I think there’s a great guitar underneath all that. Not a good one … a great one.

Most importantly, this guitar sings, especially when I’m accenting single notes and double stops. That really caught everyone’s ear while I was auditioning the guitars.

It Suits My Current Style And Approach

In the shop, I auditioned five Fender Telecasters. They all offered something unique. So it came down to which guitar suits me right now.

And that was the Vintera II Road Worn 60’s Telecaster.

That’s been even more obvious since I brought the guitar home. I’ve been running it through my Tweed Deluxe amp, and so far I’m delighted with how well this guitar goes with that amp.

Why I Bought From AStrings

Why Am I Doing This?

We’ve lost a lot of guitar stores in the UK in recent years, leaving large parts of the UK facing lengthy drives each way if they want to try before they buy.

I don’t know if it’ll make a difference – my little blog has a very small audience. But I feel like I need to do more to give shout-outs to every guitar store where I have a good experience.

The Obligatory Disclaimer

No, AStrings hasn’t paid me to write this, and they don’t know that I’m writing this.

Kristi and I are very happy customers. They treat everyone the same, whether it’s your first time through the door or you’re a familiar face.

We are regulars there, and I would describe the owner Andrew Morgan as both a neighbour and a friend. Judging by the large crowd who came out in September to celebrate the new store opening, there’s a lot of us who’d describe Andrew the same way.

So – other than they’re 10 minutes from my front door – why did I buy this guitar from Astrings, instead of ordering one online from Andertons?

Being Able to A/B Guitars Helped Me Pick The Right One

I’d watched loads of reviews and demos online about these new guitars. All they did was convince me to go and try a Fender Vintera II Limited Edition Road Worn 60s Telecaster. (That really is a mouthful!)

I wasn’t all that sure that this was the right guitar for me, from the online demos. I’m really not a Tele guy, and most Telecasters just aren’t for me.

And I don’t think it’s fair to buy instruments online unless I’m reasonably confident that it’s going to be a keeper. Because I was (at best) on the fence about this guitar, I really wanted to try one in person.

Trying one in isolation wasn’t going to help me either. I needed to compare it against some other guitars – ones I already knew, and ones that were new to me – to help me decide.

The nice thing about AStrings is that they have most of Fender’s range in stock, all the way from Squier up to Fender Custom Shop and (coming soon) Fender Masterbuilt guitars. That meant I could get a good feel for where the Vintera II Limited Edition Road Worn Tele sat in the range, and see whether it was worth the money.

Oh, and to compare it directly to an Ultra Luxe Telecaster that I’d already started budgeting for …

Getting some playing time on it definitely helped. Being able to compare it against two Fender USA Telecasters, and two very-lusted-after Fender Custom Shop guitars? That turned a very unsure “maybe” into a very sure “it’s coming home with me”.

Out-of-the-box, It Needed A Setup – Which Got Done At The Tills

As I understand it, the guitar had only arrived a day or so before I tried it, so I got to experience the joys of what travelling half-way round the world does to a guitar’s setup.

While it was perfectly playable while I was auditioning it, it did need a setup before it came home. (Now it’s home, it’ll need another setup in a couple of months time, once the guitar has acclimatised to the Welsh Valleys. That’s normal for Fender guitars, in my experience.)

Thing is, not every guitar shop I’ve visited over the years does a complementary setup on the guitars that they sell.

AStrings do a setup on every guitar that they sell, for free. They’ve put the guitar setup station right by the tills and the front door in their new shop, to make sure the guitar gets looked after on the way out.

Guitar stores (including AStrings!) seem to do a bad job of advertising this to online customers. If you’re buying a guitar online, and you don’t have anywhere local who does guitar setups, my advice is to call the shop before you buy, and just ask them if they do guitar setups before they send out the guitar.

What’s It Really Like?

There’s The Online Hatred, And There’s The Reality

If you scroll through the comments section on any of the YouTube demos for this guitar, you’ll see that there’s plenty of comments complaining about this being a Made In Mexico guitar, with Made In Mexico pickups, that sells for more than some Fender USA models.

(Alas, you’ll also find similar comments on the usual guitar gear forums too.)

I decided to ignore them, and go try the guitar for myself.

Why? The vast majority of these commenters couldn’t possibly have tried the instrument before posting. At best, they’re posting out of ignorance; although, based on the sheer volume of these comments, I fear they’re mostly posting out of racism and hatred.

Well-Priced Against Fender’s Existing Line-up – And Unique Too

There’s a lot of commenters complaining about the price because it’s made in Mexico, saying they would get a USA-made Telecaster instead. Let’s address the price.

I can only talk about the price here in the UK, at the time of writing. At the time of writing, this 60s Telecaster is going from £1,249 to £1,349, depending on where you buy from.

I think the best way to understand the asking price is to see where that price sits in Fender’s current line-up.

It’s £400-500 cheaper than the Fender USA American Vintage II series.
Fender USA’s American Vintage II series doesn’t include an equivalent to this model.
Fender USA doesn’t have any guitar that’s an equivalent of this model at the moment.
You can’t build this exact spec through the Fender UK Mod Shop either. The closest I got (which isn’t close enough) is £500 more than this guitar.

As far as I can see, if you want this kind of guitar with this finish and this tone, it’s this or get lucky with finding an equivalent Fender Custom Shop guitar.

And I do mean get lucky.

On the day that I’m writing this, the only Fender Custom Shop guitar I can find with a comparable spec is a Masterbuilt guitar at Thomann, priced at £8899. I’ve checked every Fender Custom Shop dealer I can think of in the UK, and none of them had anything on their website with a comparable spec.

The Weight Is Perfectly Fine

I haven’t weighed it; I’ve simply compared how it feels in the hand against some other guitars. I have no concerns about the weight at all.

The one I bought is slightly heavier than Jessie (my ash-bodied 52 Reissue Telecaster), and slightly lighter than Mirage (my alder-bodied Postmodern 63 Telecaster).

When I was auditioning the guitar in my local store against a whole bunch of Fender USA and Custom Shop Telecasters, I didn’t notice the weight at all. It seemed in the ball park for a Fender-made Telecaster in 2025.

The Stock Pickups Are Perfectly Fine Too

Some commenters have complained about Fender charging this much for a guitar that doesn’t contain USA-made pickups. Let’s talk about that.

In the past, I’ve been disappointed with the pickups fitted to Made In Mexico instruments. The pickups didn’t sound very good. A lot of that was the guitars themselves, not the pickups. (I’ve done the aftermarket pickup upgrade thing many times. It almost never turns a bad-sounding guitar into something special.)

The pickups in this Road Worn II Telecaster? They’re keepers.

It looks like they’re the same pickups that are in the regular Vintera II 60s Telecasters? I’ve never tried a set of those, so I couldn’t tell you if there’s any audible difference between the two.

I like that these pickups seem to be quite low output. They’re nowhere near as hot as a set of Twisted Tele pickups (commonly found in Custom Shop Telecasters). My Tweed Deluxe rig doesn’t take most hotter pickups all that well. These seem to be absolutely perfect for my rig.

The bridge pickup is brighter and twangier than the 50s-style Telecaster pickups that I’m more familiar with. There’s no harshness or ice-picky characteristic, even though this guitar has steel saddles. That’s better than some high-end aftermarket 60s-style bridge pickups that I’ve had in other Telecasters!

The middle position has fast become my early favourite sound. I’m finding that it offers a nice balanced tone with some interesting complexity that shines very nicely with a bit of dirt on the amp.

The neck pickup? It’s quite a dark pickup. I think it shines best when I throw on a Klon klone to both cut the low-end a little and boost the treble.

I don’t think there’s a pickup set in the Fender USA range that would be an obvious upgrade to these stock pickups. Maybe the Pure Vintage 64 pickups? (It’s quite possible that these Vintera II pickups are a very similar spec, just made in a different factory.) Nothing else in the current Fender USA pickup range appears to deliver the tone that these stock pickups do.

So, given the voicing of the guitar, I think Fender made the right decision to ship this guitar with the pickups that they did.

The Relic’ing Is Definitely Different To How The Custom Shop Does It

I’m probably the wrong person to ask about relic’ed guitars.

I rarely care about relic’ing. I never buy a guitar because of the relic’ing. I’m never thinking about the relic’ing when I’m playing a guitar. Heck, when I bought Mirage, I didn’t even notice it was relic’ed, even after I got it home; Kristi had to point that out to me. It just wasn’t important to me.

This guitar has very subtle relicing. There’s some light checking on the body, and some light wear zones on both the back of the neck and on the fretboard. The metal hardware has some light patina in places. That’s it. I haven’t noticed any dings or exposed wood anywhere at all.

It’s a very different look to what I’m used to seeing on Custom Shop Telecasters.

I don’t think it’s better. I don’t think it’s worse. It’s just different. I think the guitar looks fine in person.

(I did see a guitar tech say that, in his opinion, the relicing on this guitar looks far closer to the natural wear he sees on well-used guitars that come across his bench.)

There’s one benefit to the artificial aging on this guitar, and it’s one of the main physical differentiators between this and a regular Vintera II Telecaster: this guitar comes with a thin nitro finish. (Most Fender guitars come with a poly finish.)

The nitro finish looks great to my eye (I can see the grain of the alder body through it). I believe it helps me feel the guitar resonate more against my body, which helps me feel a little more connected to the instrument. And it certainly doesn’t hurt the tone of the guitar in any way.

Yes, The Neck Is A Bit Sticky; I’ve Sanded Mine Back A Bit

I’ve only found one issue with the guitar that might be down to manufacturing quality: something went wrong with the way they finished or aged the back of the neck.

The finish on the back of the neck isn’t smooth in the hand.

It’s not soft and melty, and there’s nothing on my hands after playing. It’s just got that glue-residue feeling in places, and in others it makes the neck feel like it hasn’t been sanded smooth.

I find it most notable when switching guitars.

Here’s the weird thing: it’s only the areas on the back of the neck where you would play. There’s no stickiness at the neck heel; there’s no stickiness on the back of the headstock. So my guess is that it’s something to do with the way they’ve tried to age the back of the neck.

I’ve been advised that it should sort itself out over time, through the natural action of playing the guitar. I didn’t want to rely on that, so I’ve very lightly sanded back the finish until the neck felt right.

That sorted the stickiness … but only for a few days.

The neck’s slowly becoming sticky again, and I can smell some sort of residue on my left hand after playing the guitar. I’m not sure why this is happening, and it’s definitely annoying. I might have to take all the finish off the neck to sort it for good.

Fender absolutely screwed up on this problem.

The Fret Ends Could Use More Time Spent On Them

There’s also an issue that (I strongly suspect) is down to management decisions, and not manufacturing quality: Fender could have invested time on rounding the fret ends.

Road Worn guitars (as a concept) implies that the guitar should be worn in a bit. That implies a bit of a rolled edge to the fretboard, and fret ends that are a bit rolled / smoother too.

For me, this is the only area where I think Fender can be credibly accused of cutting corners to save money.

It’s a time-consuming job to fake that level of wear at the factory – or on a guitar tech’s bench after you’ve bought the guitar.

The fret ends are perfectly fine and playable. They’re not sharp, and I’m not catching my hand on them at all. They just haven’t been rolled enough to fit the concept, in my opinion.

We’re so used to rolled fretboards and fret ends these days that it does make this guitar feel a little cheaper than it should at this price point.

Mine Came With A Modern Hard Case

I’ve seen a lot of confusion out there about this. Some folks have posted that the guitar comes with a gig bag. Some folks have posted that other guitars in this range come with Fender’s classic tolex-covered wooden hard case.

As far as I can tell, folks who have said the guitar comes with a gig bag have been talking about previous Road Worn guitars. All of the ones released in September 2025 come in a hard case.

My 60s Telecaster came in a modern Fender molded hardshell case.

I don’t know how I feel about it. I mean, I’d rather have a hard case than a gig bag. I don’t know which hard case I would have preferred. So I guess it doesn’t matter.

It Can Hang With Custom Shop Guitars For Tone

This guitar (in fact, the whole series) has had a lot of praise in YouTube demos. One common theme (that I’m paraphrasing) is that this guitar is a Custom Shop guitar for a lot less money. Let’s address that here.

In the guitar store, I auditioned it against four other guitars:

my Fender American Deluxe Telecaster w/ Fender Custom Shop pickups (Kristi’s favourite Telecaster, which is in for a service with their guitar tech atm),
Fender USA Ultra Luxe Vintage 60’s Telecaster with rosewood board (Fender USA’s very latest and greatest offering)
Fender Custom Shop Esquire (a guitar I would love to own one day)
Fender Custom Shop Double Esquire (Adam’s current favourite!)

Those are four absolutely fantastic guitars. That’s not just my opinion. While I was trying all the guitars out, a couple of other customers wandered over to admire all of the other guitars and chat.

The Vintera II Road Worn easily kept up with all the other guitars, tone-wise.

I’ve since tried it against two other fantastic Custom Shop Telecasters – Jessie and Mirage – and, in my opinion, it definitely belongs in their company.

Does that make it “a Custom Shop guitar for a lot less money” though? My answer to that is “not quite”.

The main difference is that Fender spends a lot more time on guitars made in the Custom Shop. That comes through in how the guitar looks, and how it feels in the hand. No matter how aged they are, Fender’s Custom Shop guitars feel that little bit more polished and refined in the hand.

This Is A Guitar That Fender USA Currently Does Not Make

Hopefully, I’ve addressed the majority of concerns that you might have seen about this being a Made In Mexico instrument. There’s just one left to address: why buy this over a Fender USA Telecaster?

The short answer is: Fender USA makes great instruments, but they’re different to this particular guitar. I’m not going to get this playing experience or this sound out of a Fender USA Telecaster.

I’m at a point where I’m preferring more vintage-style instruments. I prefer the larger necks, the rounder fret boards, the vintage finishes, and especially the more vintage tones. (I hate the other vintage appointments – the tuners and the neck adjustment – but they seem to go hand-in-hand with the vintage specs that I’m after these days.)

In my experience, that’s not what Fender USA currently does.

By and large, Fender USA is focused on modern-design instruments with modern voicing and modern playability; and they’re leaving most of the vintage-style stuff to the Custom Shop. To my ears, these modern-focused guitars don’t have the vintage tones that I’m after. This Made In Mexico 60s Telecaster does.

(Yes, there’s Fender American Vintage II. They don’t have a 60s Telecaster in the range at the time of writing.)

So my advice is pick the guitar for how it sounds and plays, and not where it was made.

Does The Guitar Have A Name?

It does. This guitar is called Jody.

Final Thoughts

The fact that this guitar exists has really brought out the worst in a lot of people. I feel sorry for them. I think they’re missing out on a really good guitar.

Before this guitar came along, I wasn’t sure that there was another Fender Telecaster out there for me. I’ve wasn’t willing to go Custom Shop for something that isn’t going to be a workhorse guitar, and there isn’t anything in Fender USA’s current line-up that does what I want.

So I’m absolutely delighted with this guitar. It’s come along at exactly the right time for me.