Interesting Facts

January 18, 1996 -- Here is a list of interesting Fender trivia:

Fender makes more than 1,000 guitars a day, in more than 100 different colors and finishes. Red, white, sunburst and black are the most popular. A surprising number of players opt for pink paisley!
Fender guitars were not designed as rock and roll machines. Fenders were around several years before the explosion of rock and roll. The music was shaped by the gear--not the reverse.
Fender's first product was the amplifier, and the look of the very first amplifiers is still popular today.
In their last "concert" on the roof of Apple Headquarters in the movie Let it Be, the Beatles entire back-drop was fashioned from Fender amps.
In the 1950s, Lawrence Welk's guitarist Buddy Merrill not only played a Strat, but he used a Deluxe Fender Amp.
Unable to locate large quantities of vacuum tubes for its tube amplifiers, Fender once enlisted the help of the Russian government to increase the quality of tubes made in that country. Once assured of the quality, Fender purchased from Russia the largest order of vacuum tubes ever.
The sound of the popular 1994 movie Pvlp Fiction used the music of famous Fender Stratocaster player, Dick Dale (the father of surf music). That groovin' surf sound was in-part created by Dale's Fender Dual Showman Amp.
The Fender Precision Bass, introduced in the early 1950s, was the first successful alternative to the stand-up bass. It was fully electric, and played like a guitar.

What they won't do for their Fender:

Guitar fan Chris Black of London actually had a wedding ceremony to officially marry his Fender Stratocaster last year.
Another impassioned fan, T. Winterbottom of Lancashire, England, created a life-sized Fender guitar out of 7,000 matchsticks.
Then there's the Fender lover who tattooed a Stratocaster and Fender logo on his right forearm.
An Italian collector paid $324,000 at a Sotheby's auction for the badly scratched and cigarette burned Fender Stratocaster owned by Jimi Hendrix. It went for three times the expected price -- and holds the record for the world's most expensive guitar.

They come in all sizes:

The neck of the giant Fender Stratocaster-shaped Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando, Fla., stretches over the street to make the coolest overpass ever.
The slot machine arms in the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel were made by the Fender Guitar Custom Shop to look like Fender guitar necks.
The Hard Rock in New York City proudly sports a huge guitar-shaped bar in Fender's distinctive sunburst finish.
A Fender Stratocaster is carved into Jimi Hendrix's tombstone.

For more information, visit their web site at www.fender.com.