Fender’s new Rarities Quilt Maple Top Stratocaster is an exotic tonewood beauty

(Image credit: courtesy of Fender)

Fender has announced the latest electric guitar in its Rarities Collection, and it’s a beauty – the Quilt Maple Top Stratocaster.

The new model boasts a two-piece roasted alder body with a quilt maple top, accented by a one-ply gold anodized aluminum pickguard.

Thank you for reading 5 articles this month**

Join now for unlimited access

US pricing $3.99 per month or $39.00 per year

UK pricing £2.99 per month or £29.00 per year

Europe pricing €3.49 per month or €34.00 per year

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Prices from £2.99/$3.99/€3.49

Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.

Latest

Seb Wesson plays his Martin D-28 acoustic onstage

“I was a Brian May obsessive. I had the Star Licks video and had learned it all by the time I was 14”: Hooked on “bombastic lead rock guitar” before catching the songwriting bug, Seb Wesson is on a search for songs with meaning

See more latest ►

“Bringing back the classic rock tones that started a revolution”: Behringer rolls out a $65 Tone Bender copy – promising the fuzz sounds of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend in an ultra-affordable format

“I used an SG Junior and it would never stay in tune. Felix had this old beat-up Junior and said, ‘Try this thing,’ and I never gave it back’”: Leslie West on giving his Gibson Les Paul Junior to Pete Townshend after tracking three songs with The Who

“We’d be on the phone and he goes, ‘It’s too metal. I gotta get it on pop radio! Use the small amp, not so much distortion’”: Steve Lukather on how Quincy Jones saved Michael Jackson’s Beat It from becoming a metal track

“No one has ever played these instruments live other than Gary”: Gary Rossington’s ‘Free Bird’ Les Paul/SG will be loaned out for a series of A-list gigs – and Blackberry Smoke have already used it for a Lynyrd Skynyrd medley

“Unprecedented customization”: Brubaker merges headless guitar hype with modern modular designs for the NBS Series – which offers switchable high-end preamps

“This is why we want to show up at NAMM”: Marshall is returning to NAMM for the first time in 5 years – and has teased some blockbuster launches

“The second night after I arrived in Miami, I went to a jazz club. This guy played bass for one tune and it was like he had dropped out of a spaceship”: Pat Metheny tells the story of how he met Jaco Pastorius – and their formative years in Miami

Guitar Center just kicked off this year’s Black Friday Epiphone deals super early with up to $150 off Les Pauls, SGs and ES-335s

“A lot of people are feeling the same way. They're like, ‘I’m covered with Superstrats and Strats, but I don't have an offset…’”: Misha Mansoor on the emergence of offsets in metal music – and why he should have seen it coming

“I wanted a portable amp that I could use backstage before a show to warm up with. I like to plug my PRS right into it – there are no pedals required”: Orianthi and Orange team up to create the 20RT, a portable, versatile amp with high gain tones aplenty

“I want an instrument to give me the start of a song. And, often, getting discomfited slightly helps that process along”: David Gilmour on why the guitar is still a vehicle for giving “birth to new tunes” – decades deep into his career

Get The Pick Newsletter

Most Popular