Fender American Professional Stratocaster, Maple Fingerboard, Oxblood

The Fender American Professional Stratocaster is the 2026 version of Fender's working-player Strat. The "II" has gone from the name, and nearly everything you touch has been reworked: new pickups, a re-sculpted neck heel, an upgraded tremolo and new saddles. This one comes in Oxblood, a deep, dark red with a black pickguard, on a maple fingerboard — built in the USA and shipped in Fender's Deluxe Moulded hardshell case.

Three V-Mod III single-coils

Fender's new V-Mod III Stratocaster single-coils are voiced for clarity: chords stay separated, the bridge pickup bites without going thin, and the neck pickup is round and warm for clean rhythm work and slow lead lines. Every one of the five blade positions is usable, from the glassy middle pickup to the quacky in-between sounds in positions two and four. A push-push switch built into a tone knob adds the neck pickup to whatever the blade has selected — bridge and neck together, or all three pickups at once — two combinations a standard Strat simply cannot reach.

An upgraded tremolo and new saddles

The two-point synchronised tremolo has been upgraded and is built on a cold-rolled steel block, which adds sustain and gives the top end more clarity and sparkle. The saddles are Fender's new ClassicGear Radial bent-steel units, with recessed adjustment screws so nothing digs into the side of your picking hand and intonation and string height are quick to set. The arm pops in and out with no thread to wear.

ClassicGear Precision controls

Master volume, Tone 1 for the neck and middle pickups, Tone 2 for the bridge pickup — the layout is the familiar one, but the potentiometers are Fender's new ClassicGear Precision pots, built with a set torque and a carefully matched taper so the knobs feel the same every time and the volume rolls off smoothly instead of all at once. Fender standard cast, sealed staggered tuners and nickel/chrome hardware complete the kit.

A Deep "C" neck with the edges rolled off

The maple neck carries Fender's Deep "C" profile — a fuller handful than a modern flat C, without the baseball-bat feel of a fifties U — and the fingerboard edges are rolled so it feels played-in from the first day. The back of the neck has Fender's "Super-Natural" satin urethane, so your hand slides rather than sticks, while the headstock face is gloss. Fender has also re-sculpted the heel where the neck meets the body, so the top frets are easier to reach. The maple board has a 9.5" radius, 22 narrow-tall frets that make bends and light fretting easy, a bone nut 42.8 mm wide and the standard 25.5" Fender scale. A four-bolt asymmetrical neck plate with Micro-Tilt adjustment lets a tech set the neck angle without pulling the neck off.

Oxblood over alder

Oxblood is a deep, dark red that looks almost brown in low light and glows wine-red where the light catches the body edges. The black guard keeps it serious. The body is alder, the body timber Fender has used on most of its American guitars since the mid-fifties, under a polyurethane finish, with a three-ply black pickguard. The maple fingerboard carries black dot inlays and black side dots. It has aged white pickup covers and aged white knobs. It comes in Fender's Deluxe Moulded hardshell case.

Set up in-store by Guitar World Australia's techs before it ships to you, so it plays perfectly the moment it arrives.