LEAK: Fender preps new Parallel Universe Series for NAMM 2018 launch
Includes Jazz Tele, Whiteguard Strat, Strat Tele Hybrid, Troublemaker Tele and Jaguar Strat
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After yesterday’s massive leak by Fender dealers of the new Limited Edition Meteora model launching later this month at NAMM, we now have more information of new models from the American guitar giant’s new Parallel Universe Series for you to check out!
Leak ahead of NAMM 2018
These guitars have been accidentally leaked by Fender dealers Wunjo Guitars and are now all over the internet on guitar forums like these articles here and here, both on the TheFretboard guitar forum. They also appear here on the Offsetguitar forum as well and in both cases it looks like Fender dealers have let the cat out of the bag.
I’m sure someone at Fender isn’t happy about this, but, boy don’t they look cool! They are called the Parallel Universe Series and I managed to grab some screenshots and basic information before the site pages were taken down again.
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- Wunjo Guitars leak new Fender 2018 lineup
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- Wunjo Guitar Fender leak Jazz Tele
Parallel Universe Series
We understand they all retail around £1599 each and that they are all being listed on dealer sites as Limited Edition models for 2018, so a little bit like the Chinese-made Pawn Broker Series from a few years ago, just around a £1000 more expensive.
We don’t know yet if these new models are made in the USA, Japan or perhaps even Mexico, as all the Fender dealer sites have – or had – conflicting information (most of it has now been removed). So tell us what you think of this new Limited Edition range for 2018 – love ’em or hate ’em?
Fender Limited Edition 2018 models leaked on Wunjo Guitars website
Fender Limited Edition Jaguar Strat
All we know about this guitar is that will probably have an Alder body with a nitro paint finish, a modern 25.5″ scale length Deep C neck profile with a rosewood board and 22 tall/narrow frets.
It is likely to be loaded with American Vintage ’65 Jaguar single coil pickups and has a Jaguar trem system.
Fender Jaguar Strat
Fender Limited Edition Troublemaker Tele
The Troublemaker Tele comes loaded with WFR Wide-Range pickups a 2T in the bridge and a 1T in the neck position. These pickups are controlled by a two volume, two tone control setup with a three-way toggle switch.
An Adjuto-Matic bridge is fitted to the mahogany body, which has a maple top and the guitar has a Deep C mahogany neck with a 22-fret rosewood fretboard.
A very Gibson-esque Fender Telecaster indeed!
Fender Troublemaker Tele
Fender Troublemaker Tele
Fender Limited Edition Jazz Tele
The new Jazz Tele is the polar opposite of a Telemaster-style guitar and is a Telecaster-shaped Jazzmaster, with a smaller non-offset body, but with Jazzmaster pickups, electronics and hardware.
This one is ash with a maple neck and a rosewood fretboard. It comes loaded with a pair of Pure Vintage ’65 Jazzmaster pickups. All that is missing is the Rhythm Circuit that a normal Jazzmaster would have, but essentially this one is a Jazzmaster for players that don’t like offsets.
Fender Limited Edition Jazz Tele
Fender Limited Edition Jazz Tele
Fender Limited Edition Whiteguard Strat
This one is a hybrid Stratocaster and Telecaster in Vintage Blonde and a single ply white pickguard. The Whiteguard Strat comes loaded with a pair of Custom Shop ’51 Nocaster pickups and a Telecaster bridge, control layout.
Fender Limited Edition Whiteguard Strat
Fender Limited Edition Strat Tele Hybrid
The Strat Tele Hybrid is a mix of Telecaster and Stratocaster styles, likely with an ash body and a maple neck. It is the oddest looking of the lot in my opinion – but we don’t have any more details at the time of writing.
Fender Limited Edition Strat Tele Hybrid
Fender Limited Edition Tele Thinline Super Deluxe
This bright orange Tele Thinline Super Deluxe comes with a Rosewood board with block fret markers and looks pretty bling. Again, we don’t have as much in the way of details on this one at the time of writing.
Fender Limited Edition Tele Thinline Super Deluxe
Any of these tickle your fancy? There’s a lot to like – and debate – about these new models. Which is your favourite? Let us know in the comments section below.
UPDATE
Thet are all now offical and so we have some footage below from Premier Guitar with them at the NAMM Show.
VIDEO
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- Wunjo Guitars leak new Fender 2018 lineup: Wunjo Guitars/Fender
- Wunjo Guitar Fender leak Jazz Tele: Wunjo Guitars/Fender
- Fender Limited Edition 2018 models leaked: Fender/Wunjo
- Fender Jaguar Strat: Fender/Wunjo
- Fender Troublemaker Tele: Fender/Wunjo
- Fender Troublemaker Tele: Fender/Wunjo
- Fender Limited Edition Jazz Tele: Fender/Wunjo
- Fender Limited Edition Jazz Tele: Fender/Wunjo
- Fender Limited Edition Whiteguard Strat: Fender/Wunjo
- Fender Limited Edition Strat Tele Hybrid: Fender/Wunjo
- Fender Limited Edition Tele Thinline Super Deluxe: Wunjo/Fender
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57 responses to “LEAK: Fender preps new Parallel Universe Series for NAMM 2018 launch”
If it isn’t broke, dont fix it. Sorry Fender, these are all hideous, maybe you are trying to appeal to hipsters? A Strat is a Strat, a Tele is a Tele. These look like the fugly 60’s and 70’s axes. Never thought you guys would try to out-do that horrific st vincent model by Ernie ball but…ya did.
Damn… Without hearing how these sound you might be right. Only the sound can save them. They are fugly!
Sound is key but so is functionality, knob placement, selector switches etc. These look bulky, like snags waiting to happen and just a total sellout to hippie dippy styling.
HippyDippy styling… Bwa, Ha, Ha,Ha… I normally can’t stand Fender, with the exception of the P Bass, these are kind of interesting, to me…
So ugly it’s beautiful….
Haters gonna hate. I personally think the blue troublemaker looks awesome!! Yes, sound is the main point of a guitar. I’m not sure why these people are bothered by the designs. It’s not for you so don’t buy it. ?
Dude, don’t you realize Fender need to make the same guitars forever?!? A strat is a strat, amirite? That’s why Ry Cooder needs to be put on trial for war crimes!
I agree. You don’t see a Gibson Les Paul going out of style. Same general appearance, but it’s a timeless design. The same can be said about the Strat. I remember when the B.C. Rich Warlock was popular. But that was thirty years ago. Now you are lucky to even see one. The classics will always be classics, & always in demand.
Stan, buddy, I was being deeply sarcastic.
I mean, I would think suggesting that Ry Cooder was a war criminal for putting a gold foil in his strat is kind of a giveaway, no?
No problem whatsoever. But I do stand by my view of Fender. They can come up with new lines of guitars, but the Strat as well as the Tele will always be a staple. And for the bass lineup, Fender should in their custom shop have more color varieties, no matter what the customer wants, and should be optional. And get rid of those cheap looking bridges. Schaller makes some damn great ones for both bass as well a electric guitars. I love Fenders. But in honesty, I’d take a Spector over a Fender any day of the week. I suggest, go to their website and check out their bass guitar lines. Fantastic models. Great finishes, bridges made like tanks, even the pickups are top shelf quality.
Guitar entusiasim needs a boost, what’s ugly to us may be beautiful to new generations. Just as when the solid body designs that are now over half a century old probably got poo poo’d by the jazz box players…? I personally am interested in the Jazz tele myself!
These guitars are just like children today trying to be different to get noticed and actually they all end up doing the same different things thusly starting a trend that people don’t think cool is cool anymore. The strat and tele have been cool for a very long time. Just like hipsters and lumbersexuals these guitars will disappear in due time. Gotta give fender credit for trying…sadly
I bet you are fun at parties.
lol
“Transguitars”, they’re “model-confused”. LOL!
You’re right. I agree
I already have alternative teles.
A TeleSonic and a Cabronita. But that orange one tickles my Gretsch bone.
That color is ridiculously awesome. I always think of the Gretsch orange is translucent and showing the grain, no? Which I also think is awesome. I’d be psyched with either, actually.
I had to actually go look at my Gretsches.
And both the 1970, and the 2005 are translucent, and show some nice graining .
You might not really see it under lights.
Filtertrons on a Tele are killer.
Well, we can agree both are awesome. I wish they’d used either this, or the traditional, Gretsch orange on the Johnny Marr Jags.
My dream guitar is a 25.5″ scale, three pickup Jaguar with two pickups right next to each other in bridge, Robbie Robertson style, so i can get:
neck alone
n+b1 parallel
n+b1 series (such a great sound!)
b1+b2 parallel
b1+b2 series
b1 alone
You know, just in case Fender checking in on this thread… 😉
I’ve never played an old Gretsch that wasn’t abysmal.
They vary wildly. My old double cut is one of he better survivors with good binding and straight neck.
Man, I would be beside myself with happiness if Fender just did a 25.5″ Johnny Marr Jaguar.
What I enjoy most about the commentariat here is the totally reasonable and sensible outrage that Fender Made something different. I enjoy that as much as when people freak out that Fender never does anything different.
But the best part is the high IQ commenters here managed to figure out so quickly that this is all just a terrible plot to please the hipsters. Very nefarious, those hipsters.
Glad to know you run the comment section, “thuggy”. After replying to multiple comments and trashing others opinions, you’ve proved yourself to be the hero that DISQUS needs.
We salute you, thuggyBear…
Sorry- after I read this post, I realized it was your job.
My bad.
Believe it or not, those ‘childish hipsters’ got their appetite for weird jangly surf guitars from 60s fender offsets and student models. Seeing as how a pre-CBS jaguar costs upwards of 3k at this point with mustangs not far behind it’s clear that the market for authentic vintage is increasingly prohibitive. Given the fact that surf rock aesthetic and sound are back in a BIG way, I think this kind of experimentation is a safe bet for Fender to make. After all, why spend capital and erode competitive advantage catering to the old guard when that market will for obvious reasons continue to shrink. Older, more experienced players know what they want and usually have the resources to pay premiums on authentic vintage. Young ‘hipster kids’ however, can’t afford the luxury of vintage authenticity, so they’ll settle for what they can afford: reissues of vintage models and newer, experimental models with the aesthetic and tone they’re interested in.
Look, I’m glad they’re trying something new. I got to say though, there are a hell of a lot nicer guitars out there than these. And they also all echo models already made by other makers.
It’s like women, genetically female = real woman, anything else is just pretending and/or fake, surgically crafted/created with massive does of hormones and clothing/makeup.
I suppose it makes me part of a minority,but I do love it when Fender makes something a bit out of the ordinary,so these new offerings are right up my alley! More than anything I would love to see the Katana return, with a Shawbucker in the bridge position and a JP 90 in the neck position.
“Model-Confused” Transguitars.
Sorry…What a waste of wood.
Someone in the R&D department at Fender took too many hits of acid one day and this is what happened…
It’s obvious the designer was influenced by all this “gender-fluidity” crap they’re teaching in schools from elementary to college.
If you want to make this political I would counter by saying that these guitars are about as grotesque as our current President.
Crawl back into your sh*thole.
The DOJ IG dropped the first 1.2 MILLION pages of his corruption investigation tonight, the Big Ugly is upon us, indictments for all the “Russia, Russia, Russia” loons, Leftturd politicians, FBI/DOJ corruptocrats and leakers, of course the dishonest media, who were paid to spread the lie, all will be swept up too, there is NO escape.
In other new the first NEW indictment in Uranium One deal “unsealed” and announced late today by the DOJ, the cookie is starting to crumble which spells bad news for “Her” so suck it up buttercup you and yours, the intellectually inferior, are in for a miserable ride. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-president-maryland-based-transportation-company-indicted-11-counts-related-foreign.
Question:
It countries in Africa aren’t “sh*tholes” why are each taking hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid every year and why are all their citizens looking to come to the USA?
#MAGA
How bout them new Fender guitars?
Snowflake, I can certainly understand why you’re so strident and defensive.
You should take up the guitar.
btw:
Didn’t you say THIS two years ago on Breitbart?
“As long as Trump stays in the race Republicans will lose. All of this
back and forth is completely irrelevant. Trump’s numbers will sink in a
general election so I for one am hoping he cons enough people into
choosing him as the Republican nominee.”
What a maroon!
You really ARE a LOSER!
#MAGA
You’re the maroon mate.
Strat Tele Hybrid and Jaguar. Trems are must have for me.
Interesting. I’m surprised these are so controversial, and I’m an old guy, stuck in my ways. Most of them work suprisingly well, in my opinion. The green “Strat Tele” looks like it really could have come out and been successful back in the day. The “Troublemaker Teles” are cool too, but I think they’d be a lot better with a Tele-style headstock. The red “Jaguar Strat” misses the mark with me, however. It could have worked, but the shape of the volume/tone control plate totally ruins it.
thats the sound of leo spinning 🙂
It’s an interesting concept but what about a new body type, new pick type and new electronics? I thought the Meteor body looked cool but it looks like it has Tele pickups in it. Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.
Interesting design ideas–Strat, Tele, Jag with a touch of Gibson thrown in. It’d be a gas gas gas to sit down in a showroom with my old Pro Reverb and try ’em all out.
And not one of them will be left handed….
All very nice and dandy, just hope this time Fender don’t screw us lefties as usual and offer the worst colours and less choice. Time will tell.
The last one, the Super Deluxe Thinline, looks cool and the Troublemaker Tele looks good, but I can’t bring myself to look at the goddamn awful Jaguar Strat, wtf?
I am left-handed. At least Fender make excellent products for me.
This just shows that there are some interesting ideas about combining the best of both worlds at Fender. But I have my own ideas what they should with a few of them. In the case of the Whiteguard Strat, they could replace the Tele neck pickup with two Strat pickups in the neck and middle positions and add both a 5 position switch and a push-pull pot on the volume control to activate the neck pickup to give us the classic Tele and Strat sounds in one guitar. Another idea would be a Telecaster with a Jazzmaster pickup in the neck position.
The jazz tele gives me a stiffy…so sexy…
These guitars all look great. The only people who don’t like it are people who are stuck in their ways
I really like the new designs Fender is bringing out. These babies will definitely put Fender into everyone’s heads. But I’m a bassist. Nothing new for the P-Bass, Jazz, Mustang, or even the Jaguar? I don’t expect Fender to design anything similar to the old Guild Pilot Bass, but really… At least a line of bass guitars where a customer can have one with any body color imaginable as well as be fitted with an outside company producing bridges such as a Schaller bridge to be included as an option. I used to own a P-Bass, as well as a Kramer bass. I always felt the Kramer had a better quality bridge than the Fender. Come on Fender. Us bass players like variety too.
I will own a strat tele and that’s all there is to it!
i think they are cool as hell….my fav is the strat/tele hybid…used to have a 91 tele delux plus with tremelo which was cool,,,,was always hoping they’d bring it back…this is close!
Is this fake news? Aren’t a few of these just Japanese models from about five years ago? Like the super deluxe thinline?
The GretschTele is a winner it will be a huge hit with country and blues players I love everything about it. The PaulTele almost hits the mark The body is fantastic the inlays suck, if you are going give a nod to a 58 Les Paul, you must have trapezoid inlays huge error by Fender. The JagStrat and JazzTele are awesome too, I could do without the others.
oh my gosh, I want the blue troublemaker tele, the sunburst jazz tele, and that strat/tele… . I’ll sell 2 guitars to get one of those bad boys.
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